


The Secrets of Kingdom Hearts II: The Keyblade War

by Lisagoth



Series: The Secrets of Kingdom Hearts [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Friendship, Keyblade War (Kingdom Hearts), Keyblade Wielders (Kingdom Hearts), Keyblades (Kingdom Hearts), Not Canon Compliant - Kingdom Hearts III, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 31,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29150853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisagoth/pseuds/Lisagoth
Summary: Our heroes now find out that a Keyblade War is imminent and they must find the other Warriors of Light. Meanwhile, Riku struggles to find out what it means to become a Keyblade Master.
Series: The Secrets of Kingdom Hearts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2139723





	1. A New Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sora and Riku are told that a new problem has surfaced.

If you had a chance to start everything over, would you?

It was a question that Riku and Sora were discussing as they sat by the shores of their home in Destiny Islands, when they had received a message from Ansem with the emphasis that it was urgent. They were alarmed: six months had passed since their fateful adventure in the defeat of Xemnas and Organization XIII without any incident. It couldn’t be about that – could it? This message seemed to have come from out of the blue.

With trepidation, Riku and Sora made their way to Radiant Garden, where Ansem resided as king of the community. Ansem received them with open arms in his Audience Chamber. “Welcome, my boys!” he said. “It’s been too long!”

“We came as soon as we got your message,” Sora explained.

“That is good to know. This is unfortunately not a matter of catching up. I have some important things to discuss with you. But not here: let’s go to my study for more privacy.” Ansem brought Sora and Riku to the back of the Audience Chambers, which led to a study. Inside they were met by a wizard named Yensid. He wore blue robes and a blue pointed hat. His face was long and he wore a grey beard. There was an austerity to his appearance. Ansem explained, “Yensid came to me the other day to tell me about a prophecy that had been foretold and fulfilled multiple times over the years. Unfortunately, what you have done for us thus far is only the beginning. We are looking at the ushering in of the new Keyblade War.”

“The what?” Riku and Sora exclaimed simultaneously.

“You guys know the purpose of the Keyblade, I’m sure,” Yensid said. His voice was even lower than Ansem’s and bellowed out so that it resounded throughout the room.

“Yeah, to shut the portals of Darkness,” Sora replied.

“Have you ever wondered _how_ Darkness came to begin with?” Yensid asked. “A long time ago there was man whose name is now lost to us, but we called him the Master of Masters. He was a great warrior and fought valiantly for his kingdom. One day he was mortally wounded in battle and in his dying breath pleaded with the heavens to let him live to finish the battle. His prayers were heard, but not before he died. When he got resurrected, this opened up a portal between Light and Darkness. He won the battle for his time, but it has had long term consequences for us, as it was a direct violation of the natural order. So the Master of Masters forged the original Keyblade, which is called the Master Keyblade. For the rest of his life, he fought with the Darkness until he passed on the Master Keyblade to his student, that student to his student, and so on. The story of how the original Master Keyblade came about was lost over time, and people later took it to mean that it could bring immortality to them. In a way, it did, since being able to conquer the powers of Light or Darkness meant one could, in theory, also conquer the grave. People began vying for the Master Keyblade, which spurred a war among worlds. In the midst of fighting, they broke the Master Keyblade into twenty pieces – seven of Light and thirteen of Dark. Every so often a new battle breaks out among the Warriors of Light and the Vessels of Darkness in hopes of reforming the Master Keyblade, and by extension, obtain immortality. The battleground is full of Keyblades from past warriors who have died for visions never realized. Sora, Riku – the man that you had vanquished, who you knew as Xemnas, he was leading his members of Organization XIII to fulfill part of that prophecy and obtain the thirteen pieces of Darkness! Activity was found recently at the Organization’s headquarters to create a new Organization XIII and finish what they started!”

“But how is that possible?” Sora cried. “We killed Xemnas, and he was the mastermind of that organization! Who else would be plotting this?”

“You know the name: Xehanort.”

Riku and Sora again balked. “But isn’t Xehanort… dead?” Riku inquired. “I mean, he produced Xemnas – didn’t he?”

“It is true that the death of a strong-willed individual produces a Nobody,” Ansem replied, “but we later learned that Xemnas was not _really_ a Nobody to begin with. If you recall, he produced a dark heart when he died, did he not? Nobodies have no heart, light or dark. Xemnas, I’m afraid, was really an agent of Darkness. They are produced when they replace their heart with Darkness. What this means is that Xehanort’s heart was somewhere else.”

“As long as Kingdom Hearts continues to exist, Xehanort’s true demise will never be known,” Yensid warned. “That’s where he draws his powers from.”

“Well, I was able to crack it in half,” Sora reminded Yensid. “I mean, that was the best I could do! It’s too large and far away for me to do any more damage!”

“Then it’s only a matter of time before it gets repaired.”

Sora and Riku sighed in resignation. This was not over by any stretch of the imagination. They had fought so long, even at one point against each other. The fighting was bearable because they knew that there was an end to this. But now…

“Well, he’s in for a long wait if he wants to see any Keyblade War,” Riku stated. “Even if Xehanort has all thirteen members again, we only know of four Keyblade wielders – myself, Sora, Lea, and Ventus.”

“Only four?” Yensid remarked concernedly. “That’s not good. You need to find three others before Xehanort does. He will stop at nothing to make sure this Keyblade War happens, even if it means wreaking havoc on the worlds with Darkness once again. Warriors of Light may be able to keep the Darkness at bay for so long, but Xehanort’s powers are far-reaching, and one way or another, he will see to it that this Master Keyblade is formed. The only person who can truly defeat someone like Xehanort is a Keyblade Master. Is there one among you?”

“Me!” Sora replied.

“Let me see your Keyblade.”

Sora produced his Keyblade for Yensid to inspect. After some careful deliberation, Yensid asked uneasily, “Are you sure it’s you?”

“Of course it’s me!” Sora cried. He tried his best not to sound too offended. He barely just met Yensid, but already he felt he did not like him. Was he there when Sora fought the Darkness in all the worlds and restored them back to Light? Was he there when Riku became possessed by Darkness and Sora had to fight him in order to bring him back? Was he there when they discovered that Axel – now called Lea – was the third Keyblade wielder? Or when they saved Ventus from coma, then from Xemnas, then from death? And yet Yensid, who did not know Sora, was there to judge him.

Yensid shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see it. If you were a Keyblade Master before, your powers have grown considerably weaker.”

“It’s not Sora’s fault,” Ansem explained to Yensid. “Sora had to be put to sleep for a whole year, and then shortly after, he summoned his Powers of Waking to bring one of our Keyblade wielders back. That Keyblade wielder used to be a Keyblade Master himself.”

“Your sacrifice is noble, Sora, and like all sacrifices it was at a cost to you,” Yensid offered by way of condolence. “But we must look at the bigger picture. If you are going to be a Keyblade Master, you must train again and gain back the skills that you have lost. Are you willing to go through with this?”

“Yes,” Sora said determinedly.

“That’s good to know,” Yensid replied with a smile, but his eyes involuntarily rested on Riku. “And… in case it does not work out for any reason: Riku, are you willing to go through the same training?”

“Huh?” Riku said, rubbing the back of his head nervously. “Um, okay.”

Yensid seemed relieved. “Then it is settled. Riku, Sora, I will see you both in a week.”

xXx

Later that day, Sora and Riku realized that they needed to inform Lea and Ventus about the latest developments. They were both reluctant to break the news, as they knew that Lea and Ventus wanted a fresh start and away from all this talk about the Darkness. Still, they also recognized that they continued to be Keyblade wielders and seemed to be willing to come back if need be. After some deliberation, it was agreed upon that Sora was going to go to Twilight Town to notify Lea and Ventus, while Riku was to return home to inform Kairi.

xXx


	2. Friends Revisited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sora visits Lea. Later, Lea and Ventus hang out.

Sora dropped by at the University of Twilight Town. Ventus was not around, but Lea was. Sora explained to him what Yensid said about the Keyblade War and how they were in need of seven Warriors of Light for the battle that seemed to be imminent.

“Bye, Sora,” Lea replied. They were in his dorm room, a rather cramped space that he and Ventus shared. He had been partly listening to Sora but was mainly focused on his computer.

“What?!” Sora exclaimed. “But I thought you were willing to help if we needed it!”

“Sora, you said everybody _dies_ in that battle just so they can form that stupid Master Keyblade. No, thank you. I don’t want to be part of that.”

“Well, it’s not like you have a choice; you _are_ a Keyblade wielder, after all.”

“If I refuse to fight, wouldn’t I prevent the prophecy?”

“Okay, so don’t fight. But just remember, the Darkness isn’t going away just because you choose to not act. It will keep coming back. Don’t you remember what happened to Radiant Garden?”

“It keeps coming back anyway!” Lea exclaimed angrily. “And – look, I didn’t want to mention this before, but – aren’t you guys kids? This seems like a lot to put on you. If Ansem _reall_ y cares about you, he would spend his energy to focus on how _not_ to fulfill the prophecy.”

“Hey, I’m not a kid!” Sora pouted with his arms crossed over his chest. “I’m sixteen years old; and Riku is eighteen.”

Lea rolled his eyes. “Okay, Sora.”

“I do like what you have to say, though, about preventing the prophecy. That still means we would have to make sure Xehanort doesn’t do anything to escalate it.”

Lea suddenly turned to Sora, alarmed. “Xehanort is back? How?! Ugh. All right. You have my undivided attention. What exactly do you have in mind?"

Sora explained to Lea how it was that Xehanort never became a Nobody but managed to replicate himself in the form of Xemnas, who was in possession of a dark heart. Ansem suspected that Xehanort is reforming the Organization again. Meanwhile, Sora had lost some of his abilities with the Keyblade after waking Ventus and was no longer the Keyblade Master because of it. He would have to regain his skills to restore his status.

“So… we’re without a Keyblade Master, and we’re short of Keyblade wielders,” Lea summarized. “We’ve really moved up in the world! Still, I have something that might help you out.” Lea showed Sora what he had been working on all this time, explaining that he had built a virtual reality program meant to be utilized in training people in the military and similar fields.

“Cool, a VR game!” Sora exclaimed animatedly.

“It’s not a toy, Sora,” Lea scowled. “It’s a simulation of dangerous situations without getting hurt in real life. If I succeed, I can make a fortune off this thing. You, however, can try it out for free. You get your training, and I get to test out my program. It’s win-win, really.” Sora eagerly grabbed the VR headset, but Lea was quick to temper Sora’s excitement and snatched it back from him. “Not now! Come back tomorrow. I would have to create a program specific for you.”

“Oh, okay. Hey, thanks, Lea! See you tomorrow!” Sora was glad to see that Lea was willing to help Sora out with his training. Despite the fact that they have not talked for six months, Sora would like to consider Lea as a friend.

xXx

Later on that day, Lea and Ventus met at the top of the Clock Tower. It felt like they had picked up where they had last left off, although where that point was depended on whose perspective was asked. For Ventus, he was only sixteen years old the last time he had ever seen Lea before Xehanort had put him to sleep. He had known Lea, together with Isa, since they were thirteen years old. Now that six years have passed, they were twenty-two years old. He did not feel like he was twenty-two, but he did not feel like he was sixteen either. Quite frankly, Ventus might have always been mature for his age. He was typically quiet, but more in a contemplative way rather than withdrawn. He had witnessed things that no sixteen-year-old could ever imagine and had suffered the kind of loss that could last a thousand lifetimes.

Lea, on the other hand, was always a little rough around the edges. He was often sarcastic and cynical. If memories had a chronological order, he would say that he remembered being a Nobody first and a person second. As a person, he still barely remembered much of his life, but every once in a while, certain senses would trigger a memory of his younger years. He was eighteen years old when he turned into a Nobody. For him, he was first introduced to Ventus through the Nobody Roxas, who had looked just like sixteen-year-old Ventus, the way they last saw each other. As far as Lea could tell, he himself had only existed for four years, but because of how his memories were unfolding, he felt like he was moving both forwards and backwards in time.

Ventus could not decide whose story was more tragic, and so he never made a point to complain about it, at least not so openly to Lea. In fact, neither one of them were inclined to broach the subject of their immediate past. They often focused on the present and discussed the more mundane aspects of their lives; and, despite the tragedies that they had faced, they were able to approach things with a wry sense of humor. In this respect, they were a lot alike.

It was at this meeting at the Clock Tower where Lea brought up that Sora was trying to become a Keyblade Master again.

“Sora has a lot of tenacity; I’m sure he can manage,” Ventus remarked.

“You mean that’s not something _you_ want to do?” Lea challenged.

“No,” Ventus replied. “I want to think my days of training are over.”

“Just as well. You probably wouldn’t beat him anyway,” Lea continued to bait.

Ventus arched his brows in amusement. “Oh, I’m still one of the best; don’t get me wrong.”

“Is that so?”

“You really _don’t_ remember, do you? Why do you think we became friends to begin with?”

Lea turned to him with intrigue. “Okay. Why?”

“I was better a sword fighter than you.”

Lea laughed. “That’s not fair, Ventus. Just because I don’t have memories of it, doesn’t mean you can just make stuff up and expect me to believe it.”

“I’ll prove it to you. Fight me.” They each produced their own Keyblades and clashed back and forth for a while until Ventus finally knocked Lea’s out of his hand. “See?”

Lea shrugged. “Let’s call it a draw. It’s hard doing it in these heights.”

“It’s uncanny: you said almost the exact same thing back then! Isa would’ve backed me up.”

Ventus felt he had slipped when he saw a look of pain cross Lea’s face. They lapsed into sullen silence for what seemed like an eternity until Lea finally managed, “Tell me about Isa.”

“Well…” Ventus thought, “he was actually more your friend than he was mine.”

“Really? I find that hard to believe.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because when we lost our memories, we despised each other from the start. Saix was always so condescending and smug. I think we egged each other on almost the entire time we were in the Organization.”

Ventus grinned. “I hate to break it to you, Lea, but you guys were _always_ like that even as friends. It’s like you thrived on bashing each other. I was never a part of that.”

This was a revelation to Lea. It was true that he enjoyed annoying Saix with every interaction they had, but he never went out of his way to talk with Saix if it was not necessary. As he thought about it more, he started to recall all the times Saix would drop in on him uninvited. At the time, he thought Saix was just being nosy, but now he was wondering how Saix really felt about him.

xXx


	3. Virtual Reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lea introduces Sora to his VR program. Meanwhile, Lea encounters a familiar face.

Sora met up with Lea in his dorm the next day. As promised, Lea had everything set up for Sora to enter the VR battlefield. “You’re going to need some of this,” Lea explained, holding up a needle.

“What’s that?” Sora asked.

“A paralytic.”

“What?!” Sora exclaimed. “But I don’t want to be paralyzed!”

“Relax, it’s just mild,” Lea tried to reassure him. “It should wear off in about half an hour. You’re going to naturally want to move when you fight, but in this tight area, I can’t have you running around and damaging my equipment. Everything you need to do when you go in there, you will strictly use your mind, okay?”

Sora was still hesitant, but seeing as how Lea was undeterred to do it any other way, Sora finally consented. Lea handed Sora the VR headset and told him to put it on and recline on the couch. Sora complied, and shortly after he heard Lea say, “You’re just going to feel a pinch.”

Before Sora knew it, he found himself transported to an all-white room with nothing there. “Sora,” he heard the resounding, omnipresent voice of Lea. “Can you hear me?”

“Lea?” Sora was looking around and felt completely confused. “Are you inside my head?”

He heard Lea exhale from what he imagined was frustration. “No, Sora. We’ve been over this. You can hear me through your headphones. I’m projecting images before your eyes. I can see everything you see in front of my monitor. Now, I need you to do me a favor and move.”

Sora looked down at himself. “I can’t! I’m stuck!”

“Not with your body! With your mind! This is your mental body! Concentrate!”

Sora closed his eyes and imagined himself moving. When he opened them, he saw that he was shaking his arms! “Yes!” he exclaimed.

“Produce your Keyblade.”

Sora held out his arm, and with the flick of his wrist, materialized the Keyblade. Triumphant, he started to swing it and dash back and forth. “This is easy!”

“Okay, get ready for your first boss.” Across the room from him, a dark portal emerged, and Lea stepped out of it, but he was in the form of his Nobody with the Organization’s black coat.

“You?” Sora asked incredulously.

Lea smirked. “Why not? You’ve fought me before. This ought to be a good a refresher!” With that said, Lea produced his chakrams, one on each hand, and set them ablaze. “Don’t die on me now,” Lea said as he pointed one of his chakrams at Sora. Sora charged at him, and their weapons clashed ferociously as they tried to attack and dodge the other. When at last Lea went down, Sora beamed victoriously. Lea casually got up as his chakrams disappeared. “Child’s play,” he commented coolly.

“What are you talking about? You put up one heck of a fight!” Sora replied.

“I choreographed it! If it looked like I struggled, it means I’m that good!” Lea retorted.

“Whatever! I thought you wanted me to be challenged!”

“Oh, you want me to be tough then! All right!” Lea’s entire outline blazed up again as he once more produced his chakrams. Sora produced his Keyblade again and took a fighting stance. Just before he was about to swing, Lea made a mad dash for him and pinned Sora against a wall.

“Hey!” Sora cried in total surprise.

Lea laughed. “That was too easy! Man, I wish it was like this when we first met!” He then reconsidered what he said. “Oh – just kidding! _That_ wouldn’t be a good outcome.”

“Tell me about it,” Sora muttered after Lea dropped him. He readjusted his shirt from where he was grabbed. He felt his pride was wounded, but he tried to shrug it off.

“Okay, next boss,” Lea proceeded. With a snap of his fingers, a large dark monster rose up from the ground with tentacles for hair. “Don’t be alarmed at its size. Just keep attacking it and dodging its blows.”

The monster moved towards Sora and raised up his hand. Sora gawked at it, completely terrified as he watched the hand descend on him.

“Sora!” Lea shouted. He zipped right to him and yanked Sora out of the way as the giant hand came crashing down. Lea froze the creature in place to keep it from attacking any further. “What’s the matter with you?” he cried in exasperation. “You’re supposed to _dodge_ it, not stand there like an open target!”

“I-I don’t know,” Sora stammered. “I think I blanked out.”

“Well, that’s not like you at all. You didn’t lose your _confidence_ , did you?” Lea held his hand up and acted like he was turning a dial. “Maybe we ought to slow down its speed a little more,” he suggested.

Just then, they heard crying. It sounded like it was coming from a girl. Lea and Sora looked around to find the source. To Lea’s amazement, he saw on the other side of the room a petite figure, kneeling down on the floor with her head bowed. She was wearing the black coat of the Organization and her face was completely covered by her hood. Lea knew who she was.

“I’m not a puppet!” she cried. “I have my own thoughts and feelings! I’m my own person!”

“I know you do, and I know you are.” It was Lea as the Nobody Axel that was standing over the girl and trying to console her. “What does Saix know, anyway? He’s wrong, Xion!”

Lea and Sora were both watching the drama unfold like it was part of a play, and they were the audience. “How are you doing that?” Lea whispered to Sora.

“I’m not,” Sora whispered back. “I don’t have control of this virtual reality, _remember_?”

But Lea did not hear Sora. He was moving slowly towards the two former figures of him and Xion, where Xion was suggesting that she should run away and he was agreeing with her decision. They were completely oblivious to Lea’s presence despite the fact that he was right beside them. Lea reached out and tried to grab Xion, but his hand went right through her. Axel made Xion promise him to put up a fight if the Organization finds her. She promised. This was the last time he ever saw her. The next thing he knew, she was a pile of dust in Roxas’ arms.

Coming back to himself, Lea returned to Sora. “Well, I guess that’s it for now,” he said rather distractedly. He was talking to Sora, but he might as well be talking to himself.

“But we didn’t even do _that_ much!” Sora protested.

“I think it’s been half an hour by now anyway,” Lea insisted. “The drug is wearing off. I’m going to get you out.” Lea disappeared from the virtual world.

Everything went black for Sora and then he was back again in the dorm room once Lea removed the headset. Sora fell off the couch and got up unsteadily. “Oh, man, I don’t feel so good,” Sora murmured.

“Yeah… if you want to try again, it might be best to do it no earlier than in a couple of days,” Lea suggested.

“All right. See you then.”

After Lea made sure that Sora was gone, he put the headset on himself. He had returned to the battle room and searched frantically for Xion, but there was nothing there. Could he have imagined it? Just as he was about to lose all hope, he turned around and nearly bumped into her! “Xion!” he gasped.

She was standing with her hands clasped to her chest and her head bowed. “Axel,” her voice trembled. She sounded like she was on the verge of tears. “Have you forgotten me?”

“How could I?” Compulsively, he grabbed her by the arms. This time, he was able to hold her.

“You don’t talk about me anymore. You’ve moved on without me.”

“It’s not like I had a choice now, did I? _You_ walked away from us, remember that?”

“Axel, get me out,” she said. Lea was going to ask her how to do that, but she disappeared.

xXx


	4. Memories Revisited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lea realizes something about Ventus as he questions his own experiences.

The next day, Lea excitedly told Ventus that he had encountered Xion in the VR program and that he was going to figure a way to get her out. “Isn’t that great? We can all be together again, just like old times – ”

“Lea!” Ventus interjected.

“What?”

“I don’t know Xion. Is this someone you met with Roxas?”

“Oh.” Lea became crestfallen. It never occurred to him that Ventus had completely different memories from Roxas since the part of Ventus that created Roxas was in Sora’s heart at the time. So where were Roxas’ memories? They must be somewhere buried inside Ventus.

“What was she like?” Ventus asked after a period of silence.

“Hmm? Oh. Well, you would have liked her.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

“Well… she’s a lot like you in many ways.”

“Okay. What did she look like?”

Lea paused. From his perspective, her face was always covered by her hood. Roxas knew what she looked like, and he had described her to him once, but he did not remember what Roxas said. Lea scratched his head disconcertingly. “You know what? I don’t really know.”

Ventus shrugged hopelessly. Lea had a difficult time describing her, who she was, what she looked like, but mostly why she was so important to him, and why she needed to be important to Ventus too. He could not say that he missed being with the Organization in any capacity, but he missed how she made tolerating its existence a little bit easier.

xXx

Later on that night, Lea put the VR headset on himself again in hopes that he would find Xion. As if expectedly, she materialized right in front of him. “Hi, Axel,” she said in her small, sweet voice.

“Xion,” he breathed. It was more an expression of sadness than a greeting. “Are you… even real?”

“Was I ever?” she countered. “I was just a conglomeration of Sora’s memories – that is, until I met you and Roxas. Then I had memories of my own.”

“So, how did you get into my computer? It’s not like I’m able to download people’s memories.”

“There was a light at the end of the tunnel, and I went for it.”

Lea crossed his arms and turned partly away from Xion. He did not want her to see that he was getting upset and confused. Of course, this did not escape her notice. When she tried to approach him, he just stepped back.

Hurt by his reaction, Xion asked, “Do you even miss me?”

“Of course I do,” he replied. “It’s just that… I don’t know what’s real anymore. Every time I think I know something, I get turned around in a one-eighty. I’m tired of feeling messed with.”

“Axel, your feelings are real. Isn’t that what matters? You can’t go through life questioning them.”

Lea turned to her and smiled. “You know, you’re right! Thanks, Xion, for reminding me.”

She ran up to Lea and threw her arms around him. It was so unexpected that despite her diminutive size compared to his, she nearly knocked him over. They held onto each other for what seemed like an eternity until Lea finally pulled away. At that moment, he promised her that he was going to get her out of the VR program at any cost.

xXx


	5. Vanitas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ventus comes face to face with Vanitas

Ventus was walking through the underground tunnels one day after class when he felt a sudden chill come over him. He had a feeling he was being followed. He stopped and listened. When he did not hear any footfalls, he decided to move forward again but abruptly stopped once more. Within less than a second he had his Keyblade out, turned around, and found himself confronting his would-be assailant with their respective weapons locked in mid-clash. They appeared to be of the same height and build. The guy’s face was completely covered with a black mask and he was wearing a black coat with the hood on. His weapon, to Ventus’ surprise, was also a Keyblade, except that it was black with red edges. Ventus shoved him away as hard as he could so that there could be as much distance between the two as possible. “Who are you?” Ventus called out.

The masked stranger sneered. “Of course you wouldn’t know me!” he yelled furiously. “Am I so unimportant that you wouldn’t know me? How typical of you, Ventus!”

“What are you talking about?” Ventus cried in bewilderment. “I have no qualms with you; just tell me who you are and maybe we can smooth things over.”

“Who am I? Who am I?” the masked stranger screamed wildly. He gave Ventus the impression of a ticking time bomb that was about to explode. The masked stranger took on a fighting position, Keyblade drawn and ready. “Your death!” he seethed. He came rushing at Ventus with a violent ferocity the likes of which Ventus had never seen. Their Keyblades clashed again as Ventus blocked his strike and pushed him out of the way once more. But the masked stranger came at him in a mad flurry over and over again that eventually Ventus fell backwards and toppled onto the ground. Before Ventus was able to get up, the masked stranger leapt into the air and with a downward thrust tried to stab him, but Ventus rolled out of the way at the last second. The masked stranger yanked his Keyblade out of the ground and came rushing at him again while Ventus was still trying to get up. Just as Ventus thought that all hope was lost, a second hooded figure entered the scene and knocked the masked stranger out of Ventus’ path.

“Vanitas!” this second hooded figure bellowed. “Get away from him before I strike _you_ down!” This figure was taller and apparently older than the first.

“But my liege!” the masked figure, apparently called Vanitas, cried out.

His protest was instantly met with a blow across the face that sent him sprawling on the ground. “No!” the second hooded figure thundered. “Not now! You will ruin _everything_!” With that, he dragged the helpless Vanitas across the ground by the hem of his hood, and together they disappeared.

Ventus got up, shaken. He could not believe what had just happened. Was that even real? Without taking any more chances, he ran until he arrived back to the dorm.

Lea and Sora were startled when Ventus practically came crashing in and then slamming the door behind him. He was sweating profusely and gasping for breath. “Ven, what happened?” Lea asked, alarmed.

“I don’t – I don’t know,” Ventus struggled in between breaths. “That guy – that guy _hates_ me! I don’t know what I did to him, but he was trying to kill me, and – ”

“Wait, slow down!” Lea interjected. “ _Who_ was trying to kill you?”

Ventus took a few more deep breaths as he tried to reiterate what had just taken place. “That second guy, he came and saved my life. I don’t know why, though. I don’t think there was any altruistic motive behind it. He called him by a name – Vanitas. I don’t know a Vanitas, do you?”

Lea shrugged. “I’m not familiar with that name.”

Sora shook his head. “Me neither.”

“He had a Keyblade on him.”

Lea and Sora looked stunned. “Is he the fifth Warrior of Light?” they wondered.

“What about the guy who saved you?” Sora asked. “Did he seem familiar to you at all?”

“I recognized his voice, but I can’t quite place him,” Ventus replied thoughtfully. The voice was by no means friendly and gave Ventus dark feelings when he dwelled on it. “I think it’s… could it be… Xehanort?” This very possibility sent Ventus reeling, and he collapsed on the first chair he saw. Xehanort, after all, was the one who that had put Ventus to sleep and locked him away in the Chamber of Darkness for six long years. Xehanort – or rather, Xemnas – wanted to use Ventus as a vessel for himself as the ultimate power of Light and Darkness, but Lea, Sora, and Riku were able to find him right before he could be used for such nefarious purposes. But now Xehanort had resurfaced with a hateful sidekick in tow.

Lea and Sora exchanged nervous glances. Xemnas used to play by his own rules when he presided over the Organization, and chances are, Xehanort was doing the same. From Lea’s experience, it was almost impossible to know what Xemnas had in mind, and so no one could ever be a step ahead of him when it came to foiling his plans. If Vanitas was Xehanort’s wildcard, they figured that they might have to find one of their own.

xXx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the only games from Kingdom Hearts I have never played are Birth by Sleep and Kingdom Hearts III, although I have watched KHIII cut scenes. As such, I feel like out of all the characters, I know Vanitas the least. This is how I imagine he WOULD be as Ventus' dark side.


	6. Strained

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sora and Riku compete with one another for the Keyblade Master title. Lea and Riku clash with priorities.

The next day, Riku and Sora were at Yensid’s Tower to take the Keyblade Mastery exam that Yensid had prepared in the form of trials to test Riku and Sora’s skills. It involved hand-to-hand combat, attacks, counterattacks, deflecting, and dodging, all within a time limit. These were skills that Riku and Sora were very much familiar with and were able to perform well. What was really being measured was the strength and endurance of each. The exam was a grueling four hours of nonstop obstacles and battles that came at rapid succession. By the time they were near completion, they were both exhausted.

Sora and Riku had been performing their tasks separately, but at last came the final trial, and this time, they were brought together in a small arena to fight each other. They were no stranger to this concept. Back when Riku was being consumed by Darkness, they were constantly fighting on account of the fact that Riku had viewed Sora as the enemy, who only wanted nothing more than to hold Riku back from his true potential. In reality, Sora was pursuing Riku in an attempt to save him from the Darkness. By the time Riku had realized this, he was transformed into an agent of Darkness who was capable of mass destruction in the Realm of Light. The only time Riku was able to maintain in human form was when he kept his eyes closed, and so to ensure that he stayed this way, Riku wore a blindfold at all times and learned how to navigate the world and to fight by utilizing his other senses.

Now, once again, Riku and Sora were in a position where they were placed in a one-to-one combat, only this time, they were doing it as friends. They had produced their respective Keyblades. “Good luck, Sora,” Riku said. “May the better man win.”

“You too, Riku,” Sora replied. “But this time, I _won’t_ go easy on you.”

When the referee shouted “Go,” Sora and Riku charged at one another like thunder, their Keyblades clashing in contact. They swung ferociously at one another, jumping away and then coming into contact again. While Sora was mid-air, Riku swiped at his feet, causing Sora to trip and land heavily on the ground. “Winner!” the referee shouted. “It’s Riku!”

Riku’s mouth dropped open. He seemed more shocked than pleased. He went over to help Sora up, but Sora managed to get up on his own. “Hey, wait to go, Riku!” Sora gushed.

Riku was at lost for words. “Sora, I, uh…”

“Don’t feel bad. You deserve it. I mean, you _did_ fight against the Organization while I was asleep for a year.” Sora slapped Riku on the back of his shoulder by way of congratulations and ran off.

xXx

Sora dropped by the dorm to see Lea and tell him the news. Lea was working on a machine and seemed to be in a foul mood. Even as Sora entered, Lea did not react any differently. “Well, the trials are over,” Sora announced matter-of-factly. “Riku won.”

“Oh, is that so?” Lea huffed, as he continued to be preoccupied with his latest project.

“Yeah, but you know what? I think Riku would be a good Keyblade Master. He really did come a long way, and I’m happy for him.”

Lea suddenly slammed his hand against his machine and finally turned to Sora. “Well, in that case, congratulations, Sora – or should I say Sora’s _friend_? I’m happy that you’re happy about your happiness for Riku.”

“Hey, why are you saying it like that?” Sora snapped back. “Riku worked really hard for this.”

“So you’re saying that you didn’t? That you just basically wasted our time?”

“I didn’t say that. Stop putting words in my mouth! Why are you so angry about this?”

“Because, Sora, _you_ were better than Riku. And now he outdoes you. What does that say about you?”

“Well, what do you want me to say? People change you know, for better or worse!”

“But we can’t _afford_ for you to be worse, don’t you understand? Xehanort isn’t going to make things easy just because you tried your best. _Life_ doesn’t even work that way!” Lea turned to his work in progress and kicked it. “What a waste of time,” he muttered and got up. Turning again to Sora, he said, “I think I’ll congratulate your friend in person.”

Meanwhile, at Destiny Islands, Riku and Kairi were at his place when Riku had just informed her of his new title. “Riku, that’s wonderful!” she exclaimed.

“I guess,” Riku shrugged. “I just wish it didn’t come at Sora’s expense.”

“Riku, you and Sora aren’t fighting, are you?” She sounded worried.

“No. Actually, he took the news rather well.”

“Oh, okay…” Kairi did not appear all that convinced and seemed to have something weigh heavily on her mind but was reluctant to say any more.

“What is it?” Riku finally asked after the palpable silence became too unbearable.

“It’s just that… I wish things were the way they used to be. You know, with you and Sora. You were close friends since you were really young. Then when I came along, you guys drifted apart. Why?”

“Kairi, that had nothing to do with you,” Riku insisted. “We grew up – or, maybe I did. Maybe I wanted to grow up so bad, that’s why I pushed Sora away.”

“Well, don’t be too hard on yourself, Riku. That wouldn’t improve your relationship with Sora.”

Just then, Lea breezed in. “Hello, Kairi, Riku,” he said coolly. He turned to Kairi. “Do you mind if I talk to Riku privately for a minute? It won’t be long.”

Kairi appealed to Riku, who just shrugged again. She was disappointed, as she felt like she was reaching a breakthrough with him but then it was suddenly interrupted. With some reluctance, she agreed and walked out.

After Lea waited for the door to close behind him, he asked, “Do you still have the blueprints for the Replica Program?”

“I think so. Why?”

“Because I want them.”

Riku stalled. Just six months ago, he had destroyed the Replica Program from inside Castle Oblivion, Organization XIII’s main hub of operation, and stole all information pertaining to it in an effort to bring the Organization down. He did not like the implications of Lea’s sudden desire for them, so he said, rather cautiously, “For what purpose do you intend to use it?”

“That’s none of your concern,” Lea retorted.

“I believe it is.”

“Why? You think being Keyblade Master now suddenly makes you master of the universe?” Lea sneered.

“Sora told you about that.”

“Yeah, he did, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is that I want the blueprints, and I don’t need to be interrogated about it by the likes of _you_ just to get them.”

“I just want us to think rationally, Lea. We can’t use the same ammunition as the Organization to meet our end goals. Otherwise, we’re no better than them.”

“Well, I don’t have evil motives for it, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“Lea, I’m not trying to judge you, but I don’t want to be instrumental if something goes wrong.”

“It sounds like you’re already judging me by the fact that you assume something will go wrong.”

“Sorry, Lea, but you’re not getting it.”

Lea noticed that Riku had produced his Keyblade in case he wanted to fight. He reconsidered his approach. “Riku – Sora and Kairi are your friends, right? Wouldn’t you be upset if you lost either of them? Wouldn’t you do _anything_ if you found out that you had the ability to bring them back? If the answer is ‘Yes,’ then you know how I feel. So don’t be a hypocrite and act like you’re willing to sacrifice them for this supposed greater good.”

Riku’s Keyblade disappeared. Although he was still hesitant, he knew exactly what Lea meant, and he did not want to get in the way of that. Whether it was right or wrong could always be sorted out later. Riku rummaged through a drawer until he was able to find what he was searching for and tossed the blueprints to Lea.

Lea caught them and turned around to prepare to leave.

“One more thing,” Riku called out.

“What’s that?”

“Just for the record, I thought Sora should’ve won. Not me.”

Lea grinned dryly. “Well, you did what you thought was important. That’s all that matters.”

xXx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I am aware that more than one person in the Kingdom Hearts canon can be a Keyblade Master, for the sake of simplifying the story, I made it so it can only be one.


	7. Xion’s Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lea brings Xion back.

Lea spent the next several days working on rebuilding the Replica Program within the confines of the dorm. Ventus watched with some consternation but had not said anything. He had learned rather quickly that once Lea had something in his mind, he was going to see it through no matter what; but as Ventus found that they were having less and less space to move around in, he finally decided to talk about it. “Lea, please tell me that you’re not doing all this in hopes that you will re-live some events from your past. Memories are not meant to be recreated.”

“I know that,” Lea muttered. “If that were the case, don’t you think I’d be dragging you to the Clock Tower everyday with ice-cream? But I don’t.”

“Okay, so why are you doing this?”

“I already told you before: Xion wants to come back. I have to bring her back.”

“But you don’t know what she is! She wasn’t even a person before!”

Lea shot Ventus a dirty look. “Yes, she was. I mean – she became one.”

“What about the ethical implications?”

“It was already unethical when she was first created. Now that she has sentience, isn’t it unethical to keep her freedom away from her?”

Ventus could not say anything else. Perhaps a valid point was made.

“Oh-oh,” Lea groaned.

“What?”

“It just occurred to me that I don’t have a vessel to put her in.”

Ventus sighed. “You mean you built this giant mainframe in our dorm and can’t even _use_ it?”

“Well, the husk of a nobody is typically used as a vessel, but I can’t summon them anymore. Guess I’ll have to find something else.”

“That’s it. I’m going to bed.”

xXx

Later that night, Lea settled on a mannequin and hoped that it was sufficient for his purpose. While a nobody was not exactly a living thing, it was not inorganic either. He put on the VR headset and went inside the virtual world. “Xion, are you there?”

Xion immediately materialized. “Axel,” she said, “I was worried. I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Yeah, well, I was busy. I had to rebuild the Replica Program since I don’t know how else to produce you. But this isn’t like how it was before, okay? The Replica Program is connected to the VR system, so all you have to do is transfer yourself through that portal that connects the two systems and you’ll be projected onto the mannequin. Got it?”

“Okay,” Xion said after taking a deep breath.

Lea removed his headset and anxiously watched the mannequin. Right before his eyes, he saw an image materialize onto the mannequin as it gradually transformed into the likeness of Xion. She was sitting with her head bowed and wearing the black coat, the only thing he had ever seen her wear. She lifted up her head and pulled back her hood.

“Whoa.” Lea seemed to be beside himself.

“Axel, it worked!” she exclaimed. She turned happily towards him but was dismayed by his shocked expression. “What’s wrong?” she asked in alarm.

“It’s your face, Xion. I’ve never seen it before until now. You’re pretty.”

Xion blushed violently. She had never received a compliment like that, let alone from her longtime friend. Xion had large blue eyes and straight black hair that she wore short and framed around her face. “I was once told that no one was able to see my face because I was just an illusion,” she replied.

“Well, you’re not an illusion anymore. Obviously.”

Suddenly Xion heard a voice that was all too familiar to her: “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Roxas?” Xion cried excitedly.

“Xion, that’s not –” Lea began, but Xion was already running, only to stop abruptly when Ventus emerged from the corner. He looked like Roxas, only a little bit older and considerably taller. “Xion, his name is Ventus,” Lea explained. “Roxas came from him.”

“Oh,” she sighed. She appeared so crestfallen that Ventus felt compelled to apologize for disappointing her. “That’s okay,” Xion tried to reassure him. “So, do you remember me?”

Ventus shrugged. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish I could though. Lea talks so highly of you.”

“Lea?” She spun around and looked closer at Lea again. “You’re human!” she gasped.

“Yeah…” Lea nervously scratched the back of his head.

“But what am I then?”

“Well, you’re you, Xion,” Lea replied. “You’ve always been just you. At least now, you won’t have to worry about disappearing.”

xXx


	8. Imposter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xion adjusts to life on the outside. She meets someone. Familiar faces show up.

The next morning, as Lea was having breakfast, Xion decided to join him. “Hey, Axel, can I ask you something?” she asked.

“Sure,” he replied.

“When we were in the Organization, we were always told that if we completed Kingdom Hearts, we would get hearts of our very own. I or maybe Roxas asked you one time if we could tell the difference once we have a heart, but you said you didn’t know. Well, now that you’re human, do you feel a difference?”

“Oh.” Lea had to reach back in the recess of his mind, as he reflected on the first days of what it was like returning to human form. “Well, I guess having a heart makes me feel a little more… chaotic?” he surmised with an ambiguous wave of his hand.

“What do you mean?”

“Feelings aren’t all that easy to sort out sometimes.”

“So… where is the heart?”

“What?” he laughed. He found that to be a rather absurd question, even for Xion. “Xion – it’s in your chest! That is, its physical form, anyway.”

“Your chest?” she replied quizzically. She looked down at her own to conceptualize it.

“Oh, well I guess not in _your_ chest, since you’re actually in a mannequin.” Lea showed her on his own chest where the heart was located and explained how it can even be felt manually. Xion pressed her hand against his chest to see if she could find it. After a while, she came across a faint pounding and looked at Lea in surprise.

“It beats!” she exclaimed. She instinctively brought her hand back to her chest and was suddenly dismayed when she realized she would never have the same experience. “Then… where’s my heart?”

“Oh, Xion,” Lea sighed, “take it from me, you don’t really need one.”

xXx

After breakfast, Lea and Ventus prepared to head out for class. They told Xion that she could stay in their dorm room for now if she wanted to, but eventually they would have to make arrangements for her live somewhere else. In the meantime, Lea gave her money so that she could buy clothes other than that unisex black coat. Xion decided to spend her time hanging at the marketplace in Twilight Town, and bought sea salt ice-cream to bring a familiar comfort to an otherwise strange situation. It sadly occurred to her that her vision of going back to the way things were before was not possible. She was no longer part of the Organization, the only world she had ever known. Ventus was not really Roxas, and even Lea was a little different from Axel. Thinking about this made her feel very lonely.

She had just bought herself a black dress and was window shopping when she had a tense feeling that she was being followed. She looked around among a crowd of people: everybody seemed busy and preoccupied with their own routines, not once seeming to show any interest in her. Still a little apprehensive, she kept walking and made sure that she remained blended within a crowd. When she came upon a small café and set her shopping bag down, she heard a voice say in a gruff whisper: “Xion.”

She jumped. Standing right next to her was a hooded figure that appeared to be an Organization member. “Who are you?” she stammered.

“Xion, listen to my voice. You know me.”

“Ventus?”

“Roxas.”

Xion started. Was she not just told that Roxas was actually a part of Ventus?

“They want you to think that, but he’s an imposter. I’m the real Roxas.” The figure pulled down his hood, and he looked just like Roxas as she remembered him, only his expression was very stern and serious instead of the kind, open countenance that she had been used to.

“Roxas? I don’t understand. Who’s trying to make me think that? And why would they?”

“I’m in hiding because they mean to kill me.”

“Who?!”

“You know – Sora and Riku. And now they got Axel too. They brainwashed him and made him think Ventus had always been me. But I’ve come to set right the wrongs, Xion. I need you to help me.”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on, Xion. Don’t be an idiot. This isn’t a hard decision.”

“ _Excuse_ me?” She was put off by his brusque demeanor.

“I’m sorry,” he quickly stated. “If I sound curt, it’s only because of how urgent matters really are. I have risked a lot by exposing myself to you.”

“So what do you need me to do?”

“I need you to show me where the Replica Program is. I know it exists, because you’re here. And now I’ll be bringing the rest our comrades back to life.”

“Comrades?”

“You know: the people we used to see in the Organization.”

Xion had a bad feeling about this. While she never came to witness the demise of the Organization, nor was she fully aware of their true design and nature, it sounded odd to her that Roxas would refer to them as comrades. For Xion, it was always her, Roxas, and Axel against the whole world, including the Organization. Axel had advised her in the past that the leaders of the Organization were never honest and therefore could not be trusted. Roxas had also kept to himself outside of their little group and the last thing she remembered about him was that he was trying to warn her that the Organization was looking for her so that they could terminate her. Still, she was well aware that a considerable passage of time had passed since then, and lots of things, including people’s perspectives, could change. “Shouldn’t we tell Axel?” she suggested weakly. “I mean, if for nothing else, he knows how to use it.”

Roxas shook his head. “I told you, he was brainwashed. We need to do this before it’s too late.”

Xion and Roxas returned to the dorm, where they found that Lea and Ventus were still out, much to Roxas’ satisfaction. From a side fold in his coat, he pulled out what looked like vials. He explained that the vials represented the essence of a Nobody that had since been eradicated. He had placed each vial in a receptacle and then summoned husks of nobodies to fill out each essence. One by one, a former Nobody was recreated – Xigbar, Vexen, Larxene, Marluxia, Zexion, among others. As Xigbar emerged, he grinned at Roxas. “Well done, Vanitas!” Xigbar exclaimed. “I see you have kept your end of the bargain well.”

“As long as you keep yours,” Roxas – or rather Vanitas – replied, holding up what looked like a locket.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Xigbar said with considerably less enthusiasm.

“Vanitas?” Xion echoed in bewilderment.

Vanitas turned to her, having seemingly forgotten that she was still there up until that point. “Oh, yes, that’s right,” he said. “I go by Vanitas now.”

“No…” she shook her head. “No, this isn’t right. I should have known. I have already known that you’re not Roxas.”

Appearing completely unfazed by her discovery of his deception, Vanitas transformed into what looked like a mirror version of Ventus but with dark hair and yellow eyes. “Is it so wrong, Xion, to want to give them back their life? Or is your life somehow more valuable than theirs?”

Before Xion could respond, Marluxia, a young man with pink feathery hair, stepped in. “I have some important business to take care of,” he said in a matter-of-fact manner. His voice was so rich and melodious, that if his tone were not so deadpan, it would have sounded like he was singing. “A visit to a dear friend.”

Vanitas flashed Marluxia a knowing grin. “Do what you want – but leave Ventus to me.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he replied. With that, he stepped into a dark portal and disappeared.

The others soon followed suit, except for Larxene who was hanging by the window. Larxene, who was the only girl in their cluster, had short blonde hair with the front pulled into pig tails. “Speaking of Ventus,” she said, “isn’t that him now coming up this way?”

“Oh, no!” Xion cried and ran out of the room. She could hear Vanitas and Larxene laughing derisively at her in the background. Xion rushed down the three flights of stairs and charged out the door, where she immediately smacked right into Ventus, who was on his way up.

“Xion!” he cried, alarmed as he almost lost his balance.

“Ventus!” she gasped. “Leave!”

Before Ventus could say anything else, Vanitas suddenly appeared beside them from a dark portal. “Should we finish what we started?” Vanitas seethed, producing his Keyblade.

Ventus’ mouth dropped from the shock that he was standing face-to-face with his own reflection! This was the one who hated him? Ventus quickly materialized his own Keyblade and prepared to fight. Vanitas came dashing towards him, and the two were once more at a struggle as their Keyblades interlocked. Ventus was constantly using defensive moves while Vanitas was coming in for an attack. Suddenly another Keyblade came in and hit Vanitas from behind, rendering him unconscious. Ventus looked up and was surprised to find that it was Xion at the other end of the blade! “Xion, you – ”

“Run!”

The two of them took off for the train station, where Lea was.

xXx

It was hardly ever a habit for Lea to look behind him. As a trained assassin, he never needed to. He already knew when he was being followed. So it was when he was walking back from Central Station, he suddenly whipped out his Keyblade and turned around, only to be met with Marluxia’s scythe. “Marluxia!” Lea declared in a pretentious tone. He was actually quite surprised to see him, but he managed to hide those feelings for the time being. “My favorite pretty boy! How awfully cowardly of you to try to stab a man from behind. You could at least say ‘Hello’ first!”

“But it’s not like we need introductions, Axel!” Marluxia replied in the same air of mockery. “You already know me!”

“As if I could forget! You were the last one I killed in Castle Oblivion. Do I need to remind you?”

“Not at all! But I seem to remember it differently.”

From behind Marluxia, Zexion and Vexen suddenly appeared.

“Three against one,” Lea tittered, finding it hard now to hide his nervousness. “That’s not very sportsmanlike.”

“I don’t care about sports,” Marluxia snarled. “Just revenge!”

Lea and Marluxia clashed weapons as Lea simultaneously dodged freeze spells ushered by Vexen and illusory enemies summoned by Zexion. At one point, during mid-clash, Marluxia shoved Lea so hard that Lea found himself standing alone in open ground. From a distance he heard a voice: “Axel!” He looked up and saw Ventus and Xion running towards him.

“Xion?” he said disconcertingly.

It was enough of a distraction that one of Vexen’s spells hit Lea and froze his feet in place where he stood. Marluxia then stabbed the ground with his scythe, causing the ground to rupture. Lea tried to run but that was when he noticed that he could not move his legs. To his horror, a dark portal emerged from below him as the ground crumbled apart. With one final effort to save himself, he produced the Keyblade to hold onto something, but the dark portal swallowed him up.

“Axel!” Xion screamed. She tried to jump in after him, but Ventus grabbed her shoulders and held her back.

“No!” Ventus cried. “Not that way!”

They turned to Marluxia, who seemed quite satisfied with himself. “As I recall, I won that battle!” he cackled as he, Vexen and Zexion all disappeared. The ground that Lea had been standing on earlier was completely restored, as if nothing ever happened.

Tears were streaming down Xion’s face. “Oh, this is all my fault!” she cried. “How are we going to get Axel back?”

“Come on. We need to talk to the others.” Ventus and Xion proceeded to the train station and headed for Destiny Islands.

xXx


	9. The Real Organization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Organization reconvenes and is under new management. Not everybody is on board.

Vanitas sulkily headed back to The World That Never Was to meet with his father and master, Xehanort. A part of him was afraid to talk with him, as he was sure that he had messed up. He knew he was not supposed to touch Ventus, but his blood boiled with rage every time he laid eyes on him. For one, he suspected that Xehanort liked Ventus better. It was from Ventus’ heart, after all, that Vanitas was derived. Vanitas was all of the darkness that had ever existed in Ventus – hatred, jealousy, pride, avarice. These are all qualities that were considered bad, which meant that Ventus must be good. He was also quite annoyed that despite his best to emulate Roxas’ appearance, Xion was not able to be completely convinced that it was him. She appeared uncertain, cold, and aloof around him. Not at all the warm reception that he had hoped for. This proved without a shadow of a doubt, that he, Vanitas, by his very existence, was unlikable. He could never attain the kind of friends that Ventus had, and it was not fair. For once, he would like for someone to stand up for him. For once, he would like to be accepted just as he was.

When he arrived at the Organization Headquarters, he found Xehanort was indeed expecting him at the meeting chamber. Present were the members that Vanitas had resurrected, including those who had not been killed when Xemnas had been vanquished. There was quite an upheaval. With as much passivity as he could assume, he went straightway to Xehanort and handed him all the lockets that he was carrying. Xehanort silently accepted them, although he was scowling. Xehanort was a much older man, perhaps somewhere in his sixties. Unlike Xemnas, who had flowing white hair, Xehanort was completely bald, but he too had orange eyes. Despite his rather thin frame, he had cut a menacing figure, and any look of displeasure sent Vanitas cowering.

“I don’t see why we have to agree to your terms,” Xaldin, Organization Member Number 3, told Xehanort. As the most senior of the surviving members, he was the relegated spokesperson of their small faction.

“If you don’t agree, then you don’t get our protection; that’s it,” Xigbar replied pointedly. “You can be vanquished by the Warriors of Light.”

“Like you were?” Xaldin retorted.

Xigbar growled at him.

“Nobodies, listen to me,” Xehanort announced before any further arguments could take place. His voice was gruff yet even toned, and so affected that of someone in command. “The _real_ purpose of this organization is, above all else, to achieve immortality. That can only be done by means of obtaining the Master Keyblade. Do you understand? If the Warriors of Light manage to close the portal between Light and Darkness for good, your existence will come to an end.”

“Yeah, but why do we have to agree to be _your_ vessels?” Xaldin muttered. “If I fight, I fight with my own mind intact.”

“As individuals, we are prone to be sloppy, uncoordinated, and aberrational. But as a hive mind, we can do wonders.” He held the lockets in his hand. “Isn’t that right, my minions?”

“Yes, my liege,” all the resurrected Nobodies said in flat unison.

Xaldin looked at the lockets intriguingly. “What is that which you have in your hands?”

Xehanort smiled. “A piece of their essence in exchange for my heart.” He played with the lockets a little bit like he was carrying loose change. Then he closed his fingers around them and acted like he was going to crush them. The resurrected Nobodies all gasped. Xehanort laughed and acted like it was all in good fun. “Well, friends, do we have a deal?”

“Screw this! I don’t need protection from them!” Demyx said and got up.

“What about protection from us?” Marluxia asked as he pointed his scythe at Demyx.

“What?!” Demyx exclaimed, his eyes widened with fear. Slowly, he sat back down.

Xaldin also looked amazed and then cast his eyes down to the floor in quiet resignation.

Xehanort smirked with satisfaction. Everything was going according to plan. The scowl quickly returned, however, when he shifted his focus to Vanitas. “That reminds me – what is this I have heard about one of the Warriors of Light falling into the Realm of Darkness?”

“I, uh… what?” Vanitas stammered.

“Marluxia told me about it. Is that so?”

“Oh. So _that’s_ what he was doing?”

Xehanort became so enraged by Vanitas’ act of ignorance that he produced his Keyblade and hurled it at him. “We need _all_ the Warriors of Light on hand! You hear me? _All of them_!”

“They have far less than seven right now!” Vanitas sputtered. “They have, like, four or five!”

Xehanort paused to consider this. “Make it your mission to find _all of them_. Now get out of my sight!”

Vanitas hastily bowed before Xehanort and ran off.

xXx


	10. Doubts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions arise as our heroes realize that the Keyblade War is now closer than they expected.

Ventus and Xion made it to Destiny Islands, where Ventus introduced Xion to Sora and Riku. Xion was already familiar with Riku from her days in the Organization, but this was the first time Sora and Xion met, which felt unreal for the both of them. Sora regarded her in amazement, as she looked a lot like Kairi with some small differences. “You… came out from me?” he asked an equally bewildered Xion.

“It’s nice to finally see you in person,” Xion offered.

“Sora, Xion actually came out from your memories,” Ventus explained, “but then she developed her own memories during her time at the Organization. So she is both a part of you and separate from you. She was the reason Lea rebuilt the Replica Program – to pull her out of the VR program.”

“Speaking of Lea,” Riku interjected impatiently, “where is he?”

“Oh,” Ventus said, with a noticeably heavier shift in his tone. “Well, about that…”

As Riku learned that over half the Organization was resurrected because of the Replica Program, he grunted in irritation. “I knew giving Lea the blueprints to the Replica Program was going to backfire; just never knew it was going to backfire directly at him.”

“For that, I take responsibility,” Xion insisted. “I… allowed it to happen.”

“No, you didn’t,” Ventus countered. “It’s that guy – Vanitas.”

“The other Keyblade wielder?” Sora asked.

“I don’t know what he is,” Ventus shook his head, “but he looks exactly like me. I think he’s my darkness." Ventus explained that Xehanort was able to put Ventus to sleep by extracting all of the darkness from his heart.

“It’s like the dark heart we saw when we vanquished Xemnas,” Riku remembered. “That must have been why Xemnas was able to possess you. Vanitas may be a Keyblade wielder, but he does not sound like a Warrior of Light.” Riku turned to Xion. “I know you meant no malice by releasing the Organization members. It seems the Keyblade War is becoming an inevitability. Xion, you may very well be our fifth Warrior. So that leaves us with two more to find.”

“And as for Axel, Riku, will you go get him?” Xion pleaded. “Ventus said that you’ve escaped the Realm of Darkness, so you would know how to find him.”

“I know where the other side of it is, but unfortunately, Lea is on his own.”

Xion gasped and ran off. Ventus quickly followed after her. She was half way down the shore when Ventus eventually overtook her and grabbed her by the arm. She stopped but did not turn around to face him. “You must hate me now,” she sighed.

“Why?”

“Because I lost your friend. He brought me back to this world, and I caused him to leave it.”

“I don’t hate you, Xion. I know he is much a friend to you as he is to me.”

Xion turned to him, who offered her a smile. At that moment, she was suddenly reminded of Roxas, and the feelings of familiarity came rushing in. She wondered how she could have ever listened to Vanitas and confuse the two. Vanitas was nothing like Roxas; and although Ventus had no memories of Roxas, he had embodied his persona fully.

Ventus suggested that the two of them relax for a while on the beach before they make their way back to Twilight Town. He got them both sea salt ice-cream, and they found a palm tree whose trunk was bending so low to the ground, that they were able to use it as a makeshift bench. As they were both staring at the waters, certain seashells caught Xion’s eye. She picked up a conch shell that was sparkly white with a blush of pink. After studying it for some time, she handed it over to Ventus. “If you hold it up to your ear, you can hear the waves,” she said.

He took it to his ear, and sure enough, he could hear it. He felt strangely nostalgic. They were memories that were undiscernible yet immensely powerful nonetheless. “We need to return here when Lea’s back, so that we all can go to the beach together like he promised,” Ventus mentioned somewhat absentmindedly.

Xion suddenly turned to him. “You remember!” she exclaimed. Back when they were still Organization members, Axel suggested to Roxas and Xion that the next time they had off, they would all go to the beach.

Ventus returned a surprised look, and then it dawned on him that she was right. “I do! I do remember. I remember you… Xion.”

xXx

Shortly after Ventus and Xion left, Sora tentatively approached Riku. “So what are you going to do about Lea?” Sora asked him.

“For now, nothing.”

“You know, that was awfully cold of you the way you answered Xion. You act like you don’t even care about him.”

Riku crossed his arms and lowered his head in contemplation. “What if I don’t?”

Sora started. “Really? After all we’ve been through? How long have you felt that way?”

“Sora, you seem to have conveniently forgotten that once upon a time, Lea was acting as a double agent within his own organization. We’ve wanted to _prevent_ the Keyblade War, and he seems to only be accelerating it!”

“Lea’s not complicit in this!” Sora retorted.

“How would _you_ know that?”

“Because we’re friends! Friends don’t turn on each other!”

“We did,” Riku said reluctantly. “What does that say about us?”

“I don’t know, Riku. You’re so hard to read sometimes. You’re not even happy anymore! I wish you’d lighten up once in a while so we can have fun again like we used to.”

Riku felt himself grow enraged over this last statement. “None of this is fun for me!” he snapped at Sora. “Why can’t you understand that this isn’t a game?”

“Stop acting like you’re the only one who suffered!” Sora yelled back. “I’ve spent two years chasing after you through the Darkness! I lost a year of my life! I’ve lost my Keyblade Master status to you! Everyone’s got problems, Riku, but they don’t sit there and feel sorry for themselves! You’re the only one that doesn’t want to move on, and I don’t know why!”

Riku was livid. He wanted to smack Sora but managed to resist the urge. “Do me a favor, Sora – don’t chase after me this time.” With that Riku stormed out.

xXx

Not knowing where else to go or who to turn to, Riku went to Radiant Garden to speak with Ansem. He remembered how at one point, the town was so devastated by the Darkness, that it was renamed Hollow Bastion. There was no life there but the heartless who would emerge whenever they sensed a being of Light. After Sora defeated the heartless there, the town reverted back to its original name and Ansem took the helm in restoring the place. Riku heard it was beautiful. He felt tears forming and rolling down his cheeks. He removed the blindfold and opened his eyes. All he could see was darkness, distorted shadows and images of what they represent. This was the dark side of the reality he lived in. He quickly wiped his eyes and put the blindfold back on. From there, he proceeded to the Audience Chamber, where he knew Ansem would be. As he expected, Ansem was there, who appeared quite alarmed at seeing Riku in such a state of distress. “What is it, my son?” Ansem inquired earnestly.

“I’m a fraud,” Riku replied.

“Is that so?” Ansem began cautiously.

“Ansem, I have so much hate in me that I don’t even know what to do with it. I have noticed for quite a while now that I’ve been drifting further away from Sora and Kairi, and I can’t find my way back to them. And now, this Keyblade War will be the last thing that destroys us. I can’t be Keyblade Master; I won’t be one.”

Riku did not know how Ansem would respond. A part of him hoped that Ansem would readily agree that Riku should not be Keyblade Master; or, conversely, that Ansem would argue against Riku’s points and reassure him that he was, in fact, the right person for the title. Instead, Ansem replied, rather ambiguously, “Come with me, Riku.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll find out.”

Ansem took Riku to a place called The Edge of Nowhere, which was a place that bordered the two Realms and stood alongside The World That Never Was. There, right in front of them, was a massive open field filled with thousands of Keyblades standing erect from the ground. From a distance, beyond a hill, stood Castle Oblivion. Kingdom Hearts, still split in half, hovered over the perpetual night sky. Ansem explained that they were in what’s called the Keyblade Graveyard. They traversed through the field of rusty Keyblades. Riku grazed his hand through some of them and tried to pick one up, but it was firmly rooted to the ground.

“Riku, each Keyblade here represents a person who had died trying to obtain the Master Keyblade,” Ansem explained. “You could say in a broader context that it is a quest for absolute power – the ability to achieve immortality by unlocking the secrets of Kingdom Hearts. But with that kind of power comes great responsibility, as you have the ability to create or destroy. As Keyblade Master, it is you role to decide where you are on that line.”

“Ansem, can’t you be more helpful than that? I mean, how exactly does that tell me what’s right or wrong in that situation?”

“I don’t need to tell you that, Riku. Your heart knows the difference.”

“Does it? I already feel so conflicted emotionally, and I have given my heart to the Darkness once before.”

“Riku, all people have both Light and Darkness in their heart. You shouldn’t be too hard on yourself. It is perfectly natural to have doubts. A person with too much self-assurance tends to be blinded to their own faults. But not you, Riku. You see things for what they are. You have traveled through the Realm of Darkness – and have lived to tell about it.”

“Yeah, well, let’s hope Lea makes it out the same.”

“If he allows his heart to guide him, I’m sure he’ll be all right. Lea has already managed to find what he has lost. But somehow, you seem to lose what you never knew you had. Don’t just cast things aside just because you don’t understand it. Learn from it, know its value. Understand what it means for you to be Keyblade Master.”

xXx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not really that satisfied with the exchange between Sora and Xion here. I might edit this later down the road.


	11. The Realm of Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lea finds himself in the Realm of Darkness

Lea was not sure if he had blacked out during the fall, but the next thing he knew, he was in a strange dark world that was only illuminated by dim purple light. When he looked around, all he could see was a blank nothingness with the ground reflecting the purple light like water. He instinctively knew that this was the Realm of Darkness. He groaned at his predicament. “Am I dead… again?” he wondered aloud. “Well, that figures: Who knew that your past can come back to haunt you?”

“Lea?”

He spun around. The voice sounded both far away yet close at the same time. Although he could not find the source, he immediately knew who it was. “Isa? Isa, where are you?”

“I’m right here. Just follow the sound of my voice.”

“How? You sound like you’re everywhere.”

“Just keep moving forward. I’ll meet you halfway.”

With uncertainty, Lea proceeded to take a few steps one way but got so disoriented that he started veering off in another direction.

“No, you were going the right way before. Look, I can see you!”

Suddenly, from several feet ahead, Lea saw Isa materialize in thin air like he was made out of sand. Lea was stunned to come face-to-face with his former friend again, especially with the way things were left the last time they saw each other. He remembered how spiteful Isa – or rather Saix – was and how hell-bent he was on killing him. This time, Isa seemed to be in a friendlier disposition, his features open and pleasant with familiarity, like he was happy to see Lea; nonetheless a mixture of caution and hurt made Lea wary. He hung back and decided to keep a causal tone. “Well, never thought I’d see you again – at least not so soon.”

Isa smirked in response. “That’s funny: I was just about to say the same thing about you.”

“Our old colleagues decided to throw me in here. I take it you didn’t join the other Organization members in their glorified reunion?”

“A reunion, yes, but it was far from glorified. In exchange for getting out of the Realm of Darkness, they were required to pledge fealty to Xehanort. That’s something I’ll never do, because it means they have agreed to become his vessels.”

“So that’s the real purpose of the Organization.”

“Indeed.”

“Well, what does it mean for me being here? Am I dead?”

“No – but you will be if you don’t leave soon.”

“So how do I leave?”

“There’s a portal here that leads back to the Realm of Light.”

“Oh? Where is it?”

Isa pointed at what might as well be a random direction for Lea. Sensing his hesitation, Isa offered, “Look, if you want, I’ll take you directly to it.”

“Okay.”

Together, they traversed through the Realm of Darkness on a predetermined path Isa had set out for them. Lea was not sure if it was from the deafening silence that they had inevitably lapsed into or the lack of visual stimuli that preceded them, but he felt like they had been walking for hours. Over time, he began feeling incredibly heavy and sluggish, and his eyelids were like lead. He became very tired and warm. Suddenly a group of heartless emerged from the ground and surrounded him. He did nothing but stare at them with an air of indifference.

“Lea, watch it!” Isa shouted. He shoved Lea forward and produced his claymore, striking at every heartless creature until they disappeared back into the ground.

Lea shot up like he was startled out of a trance. “Hey!” he cried angrily. “What was that for?”

“Don’t go to sleep!” Isa hissed. “If you sleep, the heartless come out, and Darkness will consume you. They can sense your heart, and you’re leaving it wide open for them.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Lea grumbled.

“Yeah, right,” Isa replied. “Just keep walking.”

As they resumed their journey, it was not long before Lea started to nod off again, and the heartless were bubbling up once more. Isa shoved him from the back as hard as he could, causing Lea to stumble. “I swear, Isa, that’ll be the last thing you regret,” Lea growled, looking angrily back at Isa as he regained his balance.

“Oh, yeah? Do your worse. I’m dead anyway; I’ll just come back here.”

Lea quietly conceded and continued trudging along. After a while, he commented, “You know, maybe it won’t be so bad being here. What do I have to return to up there? The Organization will just try to kill me again, and if that doesn’t happen, I still have that stupid Keyblade War to look forward to.”

“That’s the Darkness talking,” Isa reminded him.

Lea scoffed. “How would _you_ know?”

“Because apathy doesn’t suit you. When it comes to your friends, you don’t quit on them.”

Lea paused as he considered this last statement. “You know, I didn’t quit on you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Isa said quietly.

Lea thought he heard a layer of sadness in Isa’s tone. Isa ostensibly maintained his gaze transfixed to the ground, as if he was deliberately avoiding eye contact. Lea could only imagine the kind of thoughts going through Isa’s head, and he wondered if any were of him. “So… what do you remember about being human?” he finally ventured to ask.

“Right after I died, I remembered a lot about it at first. But over time, my memories have started to fade. As soon as the last memory is lost, I will dissolve into the nothingness. Time is not infinite for us, my friend.”

“You know what Ven told me? He said that even as friends, we always argued. Isn’t it strange that I couldn’t remember you as a friend, yet as Nobodies we acted the exact same way around each other as when we were people? I guess something must have happened that made us drift apart.”

“Yes.”

Lea stopped and turned inquisitively to Isa. “You sound sure.”

Isa sighed. “It’s because I remember. The thing is, when Ven first came into the picture, you quickly took a liking to him, but I didn’t. I started to feel more and more like a third wheel. When he left, things became the same between us. But then when we were studying under Professor Ansem, we found out about Patient X and who Patient X was. So you wanted to save him, and I didn’t. I told you I didn’t care enough about Ventus to risk my life to save him, and you got furious with me. Soon after we turned into Nobodies. The residue of your resentment for me must have transferred over when you became Axel. The night you saved Roxas, our last argument as humans played out almost word for word. That’s how I came to remember our human names.”

Lea smirked. “So… all this was because you were jealous. Well, I hope it’s worth it, now that you’re a spirit of Darkness.”

“I figured the least I could do was share with you my last memories as a human.”

As Lea and Isa finally reconciled, their conversation eventually shifted to other matters. Lea told Isa about how he was able to bring Xion back, that he had returned to college, and that he was studying computer science and engineering. Talking actually proved to be quite helpful for Lea, as it kept his mind active and he had momentarily forgotten all about his physical exhaustion. Eventually, however, Lea lapsed into silence again. Isa tried his best to keep him engaged, but even nudging him did not produce the same volatile reactions from earlier. To Isa’s chagrin, the heartless were popping up again. When he was unable to rouse Lea from his partial slumber, Isa rushed right through him, which jolted Lea back up. “Hey, what did you do?” Lea cried.

Isa laughed. “Saved your life! I had to reach into your heart to shock you awake.”

“Well, don’t do that again! I thought I was struck by lightning!”

“Don’t worry. We’re here – look!”

Lea looked up, and what stood before them was a large black boulder that extended up and disappeared far into the sky. “Oh!” he groaned miserably. “There’s not stairs here, is there?”

“Don’t you recognize this place? It’s the basement to Castle Oblivion.”

“I didn’t know the basement had a portal to the Realm of Darkness.”

“Castle Oblivion houses the original portal that connects the Realm of Light with the Realm of Darkness. It’s the Organization’s biggest secret.”

“Oh. So they entrusted it with you and not me, then?”

Isa shrugged. “What can I say? Only a few of us knew about it. Xemnas, Xigbar, and myself. But now you know about it, and it is your ticket back to the Light.”

As Lea approached Castle Oblivion, he noticed that Isa stood back. “I take it you can’t come?” he asked.

“I can’t go into the Light or I’ll turn into dust.”

“Oh.” As horrible as the journey was, at the same time Lea was sad to see the way it came to an end. “Then… I suppose this means good-bye?”

“Perhaps. But you don’t have to look at it that way. Just remember me. The memories, they are all we have now.”

“Okay. I’m glad we had a chance to talk.” Lea produced his Keyblade and opened the door. He was so used to the darkness that the light was just blinding. Closing his eyes, he proceeded through the door, but no sooner did he pass the threshold, he fell to his knees and quickly lost consciousness. 

xXx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there are some implications here that I never really went into details about - that being that everybody had died and that Vanitas is somehow able to traverse the Realm of Darkness and not be affected by it. Perhaps this is because he is already Darkness?


	12. Kairi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kairi reflects on her relationship with Sora and Riku, then has an unpleasant encounter.

When Kairi saw Riku leaving his hut in a huff, she knew there was a fight. She anxiously searched for Sora, who emerged moments later, looking equally put off. “Sora!” she called as ran up to him. Sora quickly glanced at her but did not seem to want to engage. “Sora!” she exclaimed. “What happened?”

“Why don’t you ask Riku?” he sneered and walked off.

Now alone, Kairi walked towards the shores where she, Sora, and Riku used to like to hang out. She remembered the day that she had met them. Sora was twelve and Riku was fourteen. Since she and Sora were the same age, they would often play together. One day, she and Sora were lying side by side on the sand, watching the clouds roll by, describing what they thought each cloud looked like. It was a hot, lazy afternoon, and at one point, Sora had fallen asleep.

“Sora!” Kairi sat up and shook him awake.

Groggily, he opened his eyes. “Am I awake… or is _this_ the dream?” he asked languorously.

“This is real!” she laughed. Half the time, she would find Sora with his head in the clouds. She asked him what the dream was about. Sora was describing it as if it was a far off memory. In it, he and Riku were playing around the huts when they came upon a grove that was particularly dark and seemingly untouched. This was odd to them, given that Destiny Islands was not a very big place, so as far as they knew, they had explored everything that there was to discover. They decided to go inside the grove and found that it led down a dark, winding tunnel. Nervous, Sora wanted to turn around, but Riku egged him on, and together they made their way to the end, which stopped with a door that had no knob. There was light coming from the other side of the door, so they knew it led to something. Riku tried to pry the edges with his fingers, but there was not much of a groove to hold onto. Disappointed, they trudged back from where they came. Riku had intended to return there with a crowbar, but by then, the darkness that was part of the grove had disappeared.

Convinced that it really was a memory instead of a dream, they asked Riku if he had recalled such an incident. He insisted that never happened, that it could not have happened, as it does not even make sense to begin with. He told Sora that he was living in a fantasy and that their limited experience with the outside world was fueling such ignorant imaginings. Being two years older than Sora, he had always been bigger, but even at fourteen, he was still more muscular than a kid his own age. He was working tirelessly on a raft that he claimed would take them to the outside world, and if they wanted to come with him, they would have to help. Sora and Kairi agreed, and so they searched everywhere on the island for materials to strengthen the raft. That was when Sora came upon the dark groves from his dream. He ran back to Riku to tell him about it, but by then, Riku was already knee deep in water, and the Darkness came.

Kairi recalled that she, Riku, and Sora were all swept up by the waves of Darkness, but beyond that, she had no memories. When she finally came to, they were in the Castle of Hollow Bastion. Riku and Sora had been arguing with one another and had their weapons drawn. Riku told Sora that Kairi’s heart was inside of him, and that it was his fault Kairi was in a comatose condition. That was when Sora plunged the Keyblade into himself in an effort to release her heart. This move had awoken Kairi, who saw Sora’s falling body, causing her to sprint into action. By the time she had reached him, his body had completely disintegrated. Riku himself had also disappeared, as he retreated back into the Darkness when he saw Kairi and her stricken look of horror. All that was left was a single heartless creature who she recognized was Sora. Convinced that she had enough heart for the both of them, she embraced the heartless creature who eventually returned to Sora’s former image. When she told Sora what happened, they made it their mission to find Riku. They ultimately came to a large door, with Riku standing on the other side. He told Sora that the door must be closed to keep the Realm of Darkness and the Realm of Light separate, but in doing so, he had locked himself into the Realm of Darkness. He promised Sora that he will eventually find out how to leave the Realm of Darkness, unbeknownst to him that Sora made it his mission as well.

Kairi was relieved that after everything that happened, Sora had always maintained a cheerful and upbeat attitude. Riku, on the other hand, had become considerably more withdrawn and sullen, which only got worse over time. Even during that six month period of relative peace, Riku was more apt to spend his time in solitude and had never brought up his quest for adventure ever again.

Kairi was reminiscing about all of this when suddenly, Ventus appeared. “Kairi,” he called out.

She looked up. There was a sense of urgency in his voice and expression of sheer panic. “What is it?” she asked, alarmed.

“It’s Sora. He’s in trouble. We have to go.”

“What happened?”

“There’s no time to explain. Come with me now!” He was reaching his hand out to her, persisting that she takes it. When she finally obliged, he quickly pulled her in, and spinning her around, pressed her back up against him, with one hand still holding onto her wrist and another holding a blade that he had aimed at her neck.

“Ventus!” she gasped.

“Close!” he jeered. “Call out for Sora.”

“W-what?” she stammered. She was so immobilized with fear that she was barely able to process what was happening.

“Sora!” Vanitas screamed as he dragged Kairi with him. “Sora, get out here!”

They saw Sora emerge from his hut in wild consternation. “Ventus, what are you doing?” he cried, running out. He then remembered what Ventus told them. “Vanitas?” he wavered.

“There you go!” Vanitas lauded in a mockingly cheerful way.

Sora whipped out his Keyblade. “If you want a fight, Vanitas, I’ll fight you, but let Kairi go!”

“No deal!” Vanitas replied, maintaining Kairi as his human shield. “You’re going to come find me at The Castle That Never Was; then I might let her go!”

“Sora, don’t do it!” Kairi exclaimed. “He’s just trying to trap you! He won’t hurt me! He’s got no leverage if he does!”

“You don’t know that!” Vanitas snapped. “Now I’ll hurt you just for the fun of it!” He backed into the dark portal and disappeared into it, with Kairi in tow.

xXx

Vanitas and Kairi were in the basement of the Organization Headquarters, where Vanitas had locked her in one of the cells. During the earlier days of the Organization’s formation, this was a place used to experiment on humans in an attempt to unlock the secrets of the heart. The experiments had ceased after Axel killed off Vexen. Vanitas was holding an orb that showed the perimeters of the castle, waiting for Sora’s arrival.

“Why are you doing this?” Kairi asked.

“Because your idiot friends won’t fight unless there’s something at stake – i.e. you.”

“But what’s in it for you?”

“Fighting is all I know. Besides, it’s what Master Xehanort wants.”

“What will you get in return?”

Vanitas gave pause to think before he came up with an answer: “His approval.”

“If he didn’t give you his approval before, he’s not going to do it ever, no matter what you do.”

Vanitas’ eyes flashed in anger. He rushed over to her cell and slammed his hands against the bars. “Shut up! You don’t know!” he screamed. His tirade was interrupted by the sound of a beep. He turned to look at the orb, which showed that Sora was making his way to the entrance of the castle. His ugly expression broke out into a malicious grin. “And now for the action!” he said, as he disappeared into his dark portal.

xXx

The last time Sora was in The Castle That Never Was, he, Riku, and Lea had killed Xemnas. At the time, they more or less had to sneak in there and had concerns that other Organization members would stop them along the way. This time, Sora just breezed in. He did not see any signs of Organization activity. It was perfectly quiet. As he arrived to the entrance hall, Vanitas suddenly appeared by way of the dark portal. “Took you long enough,” he griped.

“You could’ve just taken me with you if you’re that impatient, you know,” Sora quipped.

“And risk you knowing where I put Kairi? Not a chance!”

“Look, Kairi has nothing to do with this! Why are you involving her?”

“She matters to you, doesn’t she? Therefore, she matters to me!” Vanitas produced his blade and immediately rushed at Sora. He took one swipe at him, which Sora managed to deflect.

“What’s your deal?” Sora cried angrily. “I don’t take things that you care about!”

“Ha! I don’t care about anything! But I do hate, and I definitely hate you! You ought to use some of those feelings! They make you a better fighter!” Vanitas made another frenetic dash at Sora and managed to swipe him several times before Sora got out of the way again and struck him back.

“You hate me?” Sora exclaimed incredulously. This guy was unbelievable! “I’ve done nothing to you that would cause you to feel that way!”

“Oh, no?” Vanitas glowered. “Ventus chose _you_ to be his vessel because of your heart of Light! _You_ woke him up, which made _me_ wake up! You know how torturous existing is for me? All that anger and fury building up all the time?” He pulled out his blade again to prepare for another attack. “I’m the dark side of Ventus, bitch!” With that, he came rushing at Sora once more like a wild tempest and struck Sora several times. Sora struggled to get out of the way so that he can have enough room to counterattack.

Vanitas scowled, being quite dissatisfied. “What’s the matter with you? Some Keyblade Master you are – it’s not much of a competition.”

“But I’m not the Keyblade Master anymore,” Sora replied, breathless.

“What?” Vanitas roared. “Well, in the case, you just wasted my time!” Vanitas came at Sora one last time and knocked him out.

xXx

While Vanitas was gone, Kairi looked around to see if there was a way for her to escape her cell. Her heart sank when she saw a portal emerge, thinking Vanitas had returned rather quickly. To her surprise, she found that it was not Vanitas that had stepped out, but rather another figure. A female voice spoke through the black hood. “Kairi,” she said. It was a sad, soft voice.

“Who are you?” Kairi asked.

“We meet at last.” The figure removed her hood to reveal her face. To Kairi’s surprise, they shared the exact same features, except the figure had long blonde hair in contrast to Kairi’s brown hair. “I am you,” the figured replied, “but I also go by another name. It is Namine.”

“I don’t understand,” Kairi said. “How can you be me?”

“When you were swept up by the Darkness, and your heart went into Sora, you produced a Nobody – me. I still exist only because it is through Sora that you got your heart back, but I know that deep down, you do not feel complete. Is that not so?”

Kairi started. It was like Namine was reading her thoughts. Before the Darkness came, she had always considered herself independent, fearless. Afterwards, it was like she had no control in the direction of her life, like being tossed about in the waves of an endless sea.

Namine reached out through the bars of the cell. “I was also a prisoner,” she stated. “When I was first born, I was trapped at Castle Oblivion by the Organization. Riku found me and saved me, but he hid me in an abandoned mansion at the edge of Twilight Town. Although free from the Organization, I was still trapped but in a different way. I never knew where you were until now, when you came to a place that does not really exist in the same way that I do not really exist.”

“What now?” Kairi asked her. “How can we find our way back?”

“Take my hand, and you will feel it.”

Kairi took Namine’s outstretched hand, and to her surprise, Namine started to fade away. “Namine, don’t go!” Kairi exclaimed. “How do I know what to do?”

“Don’t worry,” Namine smiled right before her image faded completely. “You have the power inside you.”

Before Kairi could fully process what just happened, Vanitas returned to the basement. He looked rather displeased as he threw Sora into Kairi’s cell. “Here’s your worthless friend,” he scowled.

“What did you do to him?” Kairi cried, alarmed to see Sora unconscious.

“Relax, he’ll live,” Vanitas said dismissively. “I got bigger things to take care of – the _real_ Keyblade Master!”

As soon as Vanitas disappeared into the dark portal, Kairi hurried over to Sora. “Wake up!” she cried. “Sora!” It did not take her long to realize that something more ominous was happening. When she looked around, she noticed that the ground was shifting and bubbling up until the heartless creatures appeared. “Oh no!” she gasped and called out Sora’s name more urgently. As the heartless were coming closer, she dragged Sora as far to the other side of the cell as possible. “Get away!” she yelled at the heartless. She had made a swiping motion with her arm, and to her surprise, a Keyblade materialized in her hand! Was she a Keyblade wielder all along, or was this a gift from Namine? She turned to Sora. “Don’t worry, Sora: this time, I’ll fight for the both of us.” She slashed at all the heartless until one by one they disappeared. She went up to the bars of her cell to see if her Keyblade would work on the lock. It did! With her Keyblade in one hand, she used the other to wrap Sora’s arm around her neck to hoist him up.

Kairi managed to drag Sora all the way to the end of the basement and up one flight of stairs. After that, she was so exhausted, that her knees buckled, and she fell down with Sora. The sudden drop caused Sora to wake up. “What happened?” he said, holding onto the back of his head and looking over at Kairi.

“Sora, we have to get out of here! Can you walk?”

“Yeah, I think so.” She helped him back up, and together, they were running until they made it to the entrance hall.

Just as they were approaching the front door, six Organization members teleported in place so that Kairi and Sora were completely surrounded. “Where do you think you’re going?” Demyx taunted. “The show’s just about to start, and you’re the stars of it!”

“You want another beating, Demyx?” Sora threatened.

“Okay,” he replied, unfazed. He held out his hand and produced a dark Keyblade.

Sora balked. That was not Demyx’s typical weapon. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that there was something definitely different about his appearance as well. His eyes were glowing orange. Sora looked around and saw that all Organization members, in fact, had orange glowing eyes. In unison, they all whipped out their dark Keyblades and pointed them at Sora and Kairi, who in turn, also produced their respective weapons. Sora turned to Kairi in surprise. “You’re a Warrior of Light too!”

“Yeah… I know that now,” she replied.

xXx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally doing something with Kairi!


	13. Reintroducing The Real Organization XIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sora and Kairi get a closer look at the Real Organization XIII. The fact that it's on Chapter 13 is totally coincidental.

Kairi and Sora were sitting at the employee lounge of the Organization Headquarters under the watchful eyes of Demyx, Larxene, Marluxia, Vexen, and Xigbar. They had no idea what they were waiting for, but Kairi decided not to complain as it was an improved accommodation from the cell that she was in. She was afraid of Vanitas, who seemed unstable and given to a moment’s whim of intense fury. Having never met the other Organization members before, she was rather surprised that they seemed more like… people.

After a while of just standing around, Demyx suddenly found himself incredibly listless. He passed over Sora and Kairi. “May I?” Demyx asked Kairi, gesturing towards a spot on the couch that was free next to her.

“Um… sure,” she replied somewhat hesitantly.

“Oh, good!” he sighed as he collapsed on the couch and reclined to a position he felt most comfortable.

“What is this?” Marluxia teased Demyx. “Since when do you have manners?”

“Well, we _do_ have a lady in our presence,” Demyx replied. “Just because we’re on the side of Darkness, it doesn’t make us monsters.”

“You never acted like that around me!” Larxene scoffed.

“Right… I said _lady_ ,” Demyx smirked. “ _You_ don’t qualify.”

Larxene growled at Demyx and acted like she was going to charge at him, but Marluxia placed a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Easy, Larxene. Save your energy on the battlefield.”

“I don’t get it,” Kairi interposed, feeling increasingly brave to converse with her captors. “Why do you want to fight us?”

“To control Kingdom Hearts,” Xigbar replied. “Us Nobodies need to fight for our right to exist.”

“But you’re not _supposed_ to exist,” Sora retorted.

“Exactly.”

Sora looked over at Demyx and noticed that he appeared ill at ease. Sora returned his attention to the rest of the group. “Well, what makes you think the Keyblade War will ensure your survival? Forming the Master Keyblade requires the release of thirteen pieces of Darkness and seven pieces of Light – that means death.”

Xigbar flashed a knowing grin. “Xehanort will revive us. He came through for us when you killed us the first time.”

“That’s because he wants something. Once he gets what he needs, he will cast you all aside. He doesn’t care about you.”

“ _I_ was promised.”

“Promised what? Is Xehanort a man of his word? I heard that he’s the kind of guy that keeps secrets from you, that behind every mission is a covert one. Does that sound like a guy who will keep his word?”

Sora heard Demyx hyperventilating. “I don’t want to die!” Demyx suddenly shouted and tried to run. Before he was able to do so, Vexen held up his hand and shot what looked like dark electricity coming from his palm. It sent Demyx into shock and caused him to fall over. When Marluxia picked him up, Demyx appeared much more docile and returned to his standing position next to the other members. The orange glow in his eyes became very pronounced.

“You’re all possessed!” Kairi gasped.

“Well, not everyone is,” Vexen explained. “Just some of our more wayward members –”

“Shut up, Vexen!” Xigbar snapped. “You don’t need to tell _them that_!”

“Speaking of wayward,” Sora interjected, trying his best not to look amused, “do you even _have_ thirteen members? If I recall, you’re missing some.”

“Oh, right, that traitor Axel defected to your side,” Xigbar muttered, quickly regaining his calm composure. “Well, he was pretty useless anyway. We have a secret weapon.”

“Please don’t tell me it’s Vanitas!”

Xigbar’s knowing grin returned. “Better!” he replied.

xXx


	14. Sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riku makes a heavy decision in attempt to save his friends.

Riku had just pulled Lea out of Castle Oblivion and brought him back to the dorm, where Ventus was there to receive them. “He’s out cold, but he’ll live,” Riku said.

“Thank you, Riku,” Ventus replied. “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.”

“No, not really.”

“Are there any… side effects?” Ventus asked uneasily.

Riku knew that Ventus was asking in a roundabout way if Lea was also an agent of Darkness now. Once people discovered why Riku wore blindfolds, they often tried to avoid broaching the subject any further. This made Riku wonder if he actually made people uncomfortable. “Well, I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” he replied ambiguously. Just as he was about to leave, he heard Ventus hem as if he were ready to say something else. Riku waited patiently for Ventus to get his thoughts together.

“I don’t mean to pry,” Ventus bumbled over his words, “but have things been tense lately? I’m just asking because during our last few interactions I felt like you were, um, kind of icing us out. Like, maybe it was something Lea or I did that upset you.”

Icing? Riku sighed while trying not to sound frustrated. “Well, the Replica Program, I guess. I don’t always agree with the way Lea does things; he’s reckless and doesn’t think about the consequences until after the fact. I tried to tell him that when he asked for the blueprints, and he completely rebuffed my advice. So here we are… and after the fact.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Ventus conceded. “So, what would you have done?”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, what would you have done if you were in his situation?”

Before Riku could answer, Xion emerged. “Riku!” she greeted him happily. “You’re back!”

“Of course I am.”

“And Axel’s okay?”

“Sure. He’s in his room.”

Xion thanked Riku and left to see Lea. In a lot of ways, Xion reminded him of Kairi, although this was not surprising given that much of Xion’s likeness was drawn from her. Riku returned his attention to Ventus. “Look, I don’t know what I would’ve done in his situation,” Riku confessed. “Maybe I would’ve done the exact same thing if I didn’t know what else to do. Or maybe I would’ve done something completely different. At any rate, I understand his reasoning behind his actions, just not always the way he goes about them. But can you do me a favor?”

“What’s that?”

“Dismantle the Replica Program. I can’t see how any more good can come out of it being here.”

After Ventus and Riku took apart the Replica Program, Riku created a dark portal and shoved its broken pieces in there. Then Ventus handed him the blueprints, which Riku ripped up and threw into the same dark portal. Ventus offered Riku to stay for a while, but he refused. “I think I need to head home and apologize to Sora,” he explained.

xXx

When Riku arrived to Destiny Islands, he searched for Sora but could not find him. Thinking that Sora was probably with Kairi, he dropped by at her place as well, but couldn’t find her either. This was even more alarming, as it was not like Kairi to up and leave and not tell anyone where she was going. Just as he was thinking about where they could have gone, Vanitas appeared. “Hello, Riku,” he said in an uncharacteristically calm demeanor.

Riku did not move. “Which one are you?” he asked. It sounded like Ventus, but it did not seem like Ventus to just drop in like that. He breathed in the air and was able to smell the burnt scent of Darkness. “Vanitas, you have made quite an impression among us lately,” Riku replied coldly as he produced his Keyblade. “What do you want?”

“You,” he answered in the same flat style.

“I’m afraid you’ll need to be more specific.”

“Okay, Keyblade Master. I want you to fight alongside us.”

Riku was puzzled. “You mean for the Keyblade War? Do I need to remind you that I am one of the seven Warriors of Light?”

“And we need thirteen vessels of Darkness. We only have twelve. _You_ are an agent of Darkness despite being a warrior of Light. You will fulfill both criteria.”

“Sounds like a good deal for you, but what’s in it for me?”

“How about we let your friends live for now?”

Riku turned to Vanitas and rushed towards him with his Keyblade. Their blades clashed as Riku turned around to prepare for another strike. “What have you done with Sora and Kairi?” he roared.

“Relax, they’re fine. If you want, I can take you to them.”

“You better, or so help me!”

“So help you what? You’ll turn to the Darkness?” Vanitas quipped dryly.

“I don’t want to hear anything from you if it’s not about Sora or Kairi!” he bellowed, pointing his Keyblade at him. He could feel the anger rising again. He wanted to kill him but held back.

“All right, fine. Some fun you are,” Vanitas muttered. He opened a dark portal, and together, Riku and Vanitas went in.

xXx

Riku and Vanitas arrived to The Castle That Never Was, where all the rest of the Organization members, Xehanort, Sora and Kairi were waiting. There were six members surrounding Sora and Kairi, four more standing in the background, and Xehanort presiding over all of them. Xehanort seemed quite pleased when he saw Riku walk in. “We meet again,” Xehanort said by way of greeting.

“Cut the small talk, Xehanort. I’m here for one thing only. You let my friends go.”

“First I need you to swear fealty to me by accepting my dark heart as your own.”

“Riku, don’t do it!” Sora cried. “I don’t care about me! Think about the bigger picture!”

Riku was stalling. He hated being put in this position. But was it really a position he had to accept? Feeling the anger rise up, he summoned his Keyblade and rushed at Xehanort with all his might. Xehanort took out his own dark Keyblade and made a counterattack. They were constantly going after each other, their weapons coming into contact and then repelling one another like opposite forces. When Riku removed his blindfolds, he summoned a gale of wind which would have otherwise knocked back a foe, but Xehanort was able to resist and struck Riku in the process. Riku fell to his knees from sheer exhaustion.

Xehanort stood before him in victory. “You see, Riku, I was a Keyblade Master too. I know all the tricks. I am your equal, if not your superior. Now will you pledge yourself to me?”

Sora and Kairi were both shouting for Riku to stop. Riku was thinking about it. From a cognitive perspective, he knew that it might make more sense to let his friends die and therefore never allow the Keyblade War to happen. But he could not bring himself to do that. His heart was telling him that it was not right, and deep down, Riku knew what he had to do.

“Okay,” Riku panted, trying to catch his breath. “Okay, you win. You _win_! But you have to let my friends go first.” He looked up at Sora and Kairi, knowing full well that this could be the last time. All he saw was a shadow of their images, but their expressions of dismay was clearly visible. “I’m sorry, Sora, Kairi.”

“Done,” Xehanort declared. With a snap of his fingers, a portal appeared and took the protesting Kairi and Sora away. From within Xehanort, a dark heart emerged which gravitated towards Riku. As it entered his heart, his eyes changed from a sea-green blue to neon orange. This was Xehanort’s Dark Riku.

xXx


	15. Reloaded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lea finds that he is back, along with an unexpected guest.

For the longest time Lea could not tell if he was awake or dreaming. Every time he thought he was awake or waking up, a wave of shadows would overwhelm him and bury him further into the darkness. He felt like he was drowning in it, and he had to fight hard to propel himself out from under its layers. When he eventually managed to arrive to the surface, he was met with an intense, throbbing head pain and deafening white noise, like static electrifying his brain. His thoughts felt scattered, crowded, and unclear. At some point he realized that he was lying in bed. “Maybe that was a dream after all,” he thought.

“Axel?”

He opened his eyes and saw that Xion was sitting right next to him. After looking at her for a brief moment, he turned away and threw his arm over his face.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“The light’s hurting my eyes. Can you turn it off?”

“Oh. Okay.” When he sensed that he was once again under the comfortable cloak of darkness, he opened his eyes and sat up. His head was still hurting, but it was not as painful to look out. As his vision was slowly starting to adjust through the dark, he was able to make out Xion’s features, which were panic-stricken. “Axel, are you okay?”

“I think… I have a migraine,” he said, although it sounded more like an inquiry since he never had migraines before. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Well, I wanted to check on you. Riku got you out of Castle Oblivion a few hours ago.”

“Oh. I guess that _wasn’t_ a dream. Well, enlighten me. What happened?” When she told Lea about how half of the Organization got resurrected, and that Riku dismantled the Replica Program shortly after, a hurtful look crossed his face. “That was _you_?” A dark thought suddenly came to his mind. “So… you only wanted to get out just so that you can help the Organization?”

“Of course not!” she protested. “I just got confused and –”

“Don’t act so naïve, Xion,” he snapped. “I thought you were better than that.”

Xion’s eyes welled up as she fought back the tears.

“That’s rough, man.” A disembodied male voice was speaking. Xion did not seem to notice this, but it was crystal clear to Lea.

Disconcerted, he looked around the room. “Who said that?”

The voice laughed. “You forgot about me already? It’s Isa.”

“What? Where are you?”

“I’m inside your mind.”

“You’re what?!” Lea screamed. So Isa must be the reason he was having headaches! “How’d you get in there?”

“You know you left the door open when you fainted? I figured I would take that opportunity to use you as a vessel.”

“Get out!” he growled. “You _had_ your chance to be human! You can’t stay in there!”

“Relax. I don’t intend to stay long. I need you to do something for me.”

“What’s that?”

“I need you to do for me what you did for Xion.”

“What, with the Replica Program? I can’t do that! You _just_ heard Xion say they destroyed it!”

While this conversation was taking place, from Xion’s perspective, Lea appeared to be ranting and raving to himself like a madman. He was worked up into a frenzy, pacing around the room, and getting increasingly agitated.

Ventus suddenly barged in. “What’s going on? What’s all the commotion?” he exclaimed.

“It’s my head! Isa’s in my head!” Lea fumed. He grabbed Ventus by the shoulders in such earnestness that Ventus thought he was going to shake him. “No wonder he wanted to help me escape the Realm of Darkness! That lying, thieving –”

“Isa’s in there?” Ventus briefly left the room before coming back with a syringe of the paralytic agent. “Okay, sit down,” Ventus directed, but Lea was not even listening anymore. He was so angry at the thought that he was betrayed by both Xion and Isa, that he came to the notion that Ventus was part of a conspiracy against him as well. He produced his Keyblade and looked like he was about to attack. At that moment Ventus plunged the needle right into the side of Lea’s neck. Lea’s furious expression became one of shock as he dropped his Keyblade. He froze in place and would have toppled over had not Ventus caught him and laid him back on the bed.

Ventus grabbed Lea’s laptop and placed the VR headset on Lea and the other headset on himself. He turned on the open battleground program and saw an image of Lea materialize against the white backdrop, appearing extremely vexed. “You know I’m going to kill you after this – right, Ven?” he scowled.

“Yeah, whatever. Worry about that later. For now, focus.”

“On what?”

“On getting Isa out.”

“I don’t know how to do that! I didn’t even know that Xion was able to come out of Sora, but she did!”

Ventus turned to Xion. “How _did_ you do that?”

“I saw a light at the end of a tunnel,” she explained.

Ventus returned his attention to the computer screen. “Uh, Isa, can you hear me?”

“Yeah.” It was a disembodied voice that echoed across the virtual room.

“Do you see a tunnel where you are?”

“Yes, but… if I come out, you better promise me you’ll get me out of this program.”

“Of course we will. We can rebuild it. And anyway, you’re more familiar with that kind of work than Lea is. He copied from you and produced Xion!”

“Hmm… this is true. Okay.”

Suddenly an image materialized, although it was not quite what Ventus expected. He saw Isa as he first remembered him at the age of thirteen. Lea also transformed as being the same age. The white backdrop changed into what Radiant Garden used to look like. It was a bigger town back in the day, with tall, colorful buildings stacked against one another in rows going all the way down a cobbled street that disappeared into the horizon. “Whoa, we’re kids again!” Lea exclaimed excitedly.

“Cool!” Isa replied with equal enthusiasm. They were running around and seemed to be recreating a memory that involved meeting Ventus for the first time. Here, they managed to sneak inside the castle walls and weaved in and out of the maze gardens with their wooden swords. When they finally came across Ventus, the young version of himself was fiddling with a stick. Lea looked at him and laughed. “You call that a sword?” he sneered.

Ventus returned a wry grin. “Whatever. I bet I’m a better swordsman than you!”

Lea assumed a fighting position. “You’re on!” The two clashed with their respective weapons, going back and forth until Ventus knocked Lea’s out of his hand when they heard a voice call out for Ventus. “Let’s call it a draw,” Lea suggested. “I got distracted.”

“Sounds more like you just plain lost!” Isa taunted.

Lea turned to Ventus. “You see that? Who needs enemies when you have friends like him?” he commented dryly, gesturing towards Isa.

“I got to go,” Ventus told them. “That’s my master calling.”

As Ventus ran off, Lea and Isa had the misfortune of running into Braig, the human version of Xigbar, who was apparently a castle guard in his former life. “What are you kids doing here?” he growled. “You’re not allowed inside castle walls.”

“But what about that _other_ kid?” Isa pointed to the direction where Ventus ran off.

“Don’t try to trick me! I’ll deal with that later! But for now…” Braig dragged Isa and Lea by the collars of their shirts and threw them out upon reaching the gate. So now they knew that Xigbar was a jerk even before he became a Nobody.

As they were thrown out, they came upon another memory. They were re-enacting each and every memory that was playing out. From Lea and Isa’s perspective, everything that was happening seemed like it was taking years, but in reality, it was all in a matter of minutes. Many images started going by so fast, that it became a complete blur on the screen, and Ventus feared that it was glitching out.

The memories slowed down to the point where now Lea and Isa were students of Xehanort, who was called Professor Ansem at the time. Isa and Lea were inside the Rotunda with a huge ray gun that took up half the room. “You sure you couldn’t have made it any bigger?” Isa asked sarcastically.

“Hey, you know this contains concentrated dark energy, right? If its chamber was any smaller, the whole thing would explode.”

An explosion landed them right into the Organization Headquarters. They were now their Nobody counterparts, Axel and Saix. Ventus and Xion watched the events moving in fast-forward as Saix was giving Axel instructions to kill certain Organization members. Ventus and Xion were quite amused that they were able to see themselves again in the Organization. They had forgotten how tense things could be there sometimes. They watched through Saix’s eyes as their relationships disintegrated, and how Xion’s death caused a greater rift between Axel and Saix. They then saw Axel and Saix argue over the fate of Roxas and ultimately settled on putting him in a digital world. Axel later died in Castle Oblivion after Saix freed him from the Chamber of Nothingness. Axel then returned to the Organizational Headquarters as Lea, where he confronted Saix and the two battled until Lea ultimately killed Saix. The last and final memory, which was now moving in slow motion, was of Lea and Isa walking through the Realm of Darkness and of Lea opening the door that connected the two realms. Everything turned white again as Lea and Isa materialized back into their present day selves. “You know, for the record, I knew the chamber should have been bigger,” Lea commented.

“You were shooting a weapon the size of a tank inside a tiny room!” Isa countered incredulously.

“Hey, whatever! The Rotunda is still intact! But I didn’t see the gun anywhere.”

“Wait – you were at the Rotunda recently?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I just remembered that the Replica Program that I built for the Organization was based on one that is inside the control room of the Rotunda!” Isa said excitedly.

“Well, we found a secret room, but that was no control room.”

“The Rotunda is full of secret rooms! Why do you think it is round?”

Ventus decided to interject at that point. “So does this mean you’re finished… downloading?”

Lea and Isa looked up to where Ventus’ voice was coming from as if they could see Ventus through the computer screen. “I think so,” Isa replied. “Do you want to go to the Rotunda and help me with it? I can walk you through the process.”

“Oh, okay. But what do I need to do?” Ventus was not as familiar with the technology as Lea and Isa were, so he was not confident that he could pull it off.

“Just take the laptop with you to connect to the mainframe,” Lea answered. “Isa can show you how to do the rest.”

“Okay. Well, I’ll see you guys later.” Ventus turned off the VR program and removed the headsets himself and then Lea. “Xion, stay here and look after Lea while I’m gone,” Ventus said as he prepared to head out.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To Radiant Garden. I’m bringing Isa back.”

xXx


	16. Isa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isa returns.

Ventus arrived at the Rotunda of Radiant Garden’s castle, flipped open Lea’s laptop, and turned on the VR program to find Isa. When he saw him materializing, he asked, “Okay, where’s the control room?”

“To the left. You’re going to need to find a groove within the wall. That takes you to a hidden passage.”

Ventus felt along the walls until he came across a faint dent. Using a knife, he cut through the wallpaper and saw a divider. He pulled it, so that it slid and opened up to another room. He figured this was the control room, since it had many oversized computers and switches. Almost everything was made of stainless steel. He looked all over the room to find a mainframe that looked similar to the Replica Program. When he found what he thought he was looking for, he hooked up the laptop and consulted Isa again. “Okay, now what?”

“You need a vessel.”

“What do I use?”

“There’s bound to be husks in here. The whole purpose of the control room was to replicate the powers of Kingdom Hearts. Just look around.”

Ventus searched the entire place from top to bottom. There was nothing really much to look at. It was clean and without clutter. He had a dreadful sense that it was like a surgical room. His eyes fell upon a wall that had a lot of cabinets from floor to ceiling. A terrible premonition came over him as he had a feeling that he knew what it was. Sure enough, when he pulled out one of the drawers, he saw a body clothed in a black coat. He instantly jumped back in revulsion and ran to the VR program to tell Isa. “This is a morgue!” he seethed.

“What?” Isa cried in bewilderment. “Are you sure those aren’t just husks?”

“No! They’re bodies!”

Ventus saw Isa’s eyes dart back and forth as he thought about what it meant. “Ven… could you see if _my_ body is there?”

“Are you out of your mind?! This is so morbid!”

“Ven, please! I need to know! Find it!”

Ventus exhaled in agitation. With extreme reluctance, he agreed. Ventus returned to the wall of cabinets and opened up each one, lifting the cloth covering from every face and closing the cabinet when it was not Isa’s. He seemed to recognize the faces, but he could not place them anywhere in recent memory. He was surprised by how incredibly well preserved the bodies were, as there were no signs of decay or deterioration. When he came to a middle drawer, he saw that it was Isa. He trudged back to the computer and placed the headset on. “I found it,” he said flatly.

“So… it is usable?”

Ventus balked. “I don’t know. I mean, this is not like restarting a heart!”

“We’re just going to have to find out now, won’t we?”

Ventus sighed and reluctantly agreed. He dragged Isa’s body out of the cabinet, put him in a sitting position, and connected one electrode to each temple, per Isa’s instructions. Ventus returned to the VR program once more to tell Isa that everything was set up.

“I guess I’ll see you on the other side then… or not,” Isa remarked dryly. At the opposite side of the VR room, a portal appeared. Isa waved farewell to Ventus and ambled through the portal. Ventus waited for what seemed like an eternity. Isa’s eyes flew open so suddenly, that it caught Ventus off guard, and he jumped back. “ _That_ was lucky,” Isa said, pulling off the electrodes. “It took me forever to find myself!” Isa got up and walked over to the cabinets. He pulled out two of them at once, looked under, and gasped. “Ven, do you know who these people are?”

“Should I?”

“Organization XIII members! All of them!” He opened up another cabinet, which was empty. “I bet you Lea was in there,” he speculated before shutting it back.

“What does that mean?” Ventus exclaimed.

“It means Xehanort had been planning this for a very long time. He must have intentionally created us as Nobodies just so we can become his vessels of Darkness – the real purpose of the Organization.”

“Then that means Xehanort’s plans have been moving forward all along,” Ventus groaned miserably. “We’ve barely made a dent to it. All this to incite a Keyblade War and produce the Master Keyblade.”

“Uh-oh. That would allow him to control both Light and Darkness, and knowing him, he will probably use that ability to destroy all the Light, so that there’s nothing but Darkness.”

“Well, what’s next?”

“I don’t know. But at the very least, I can offer some small contribution. I’ll destroy this Replica Program to prevent him from getting any more chances to do this again.” Out of habit, Isa held out his arm, expecting his claymore to appear. It was no wonder, then, that he was shocked to discover that he produced a Keyblade instead. “Well, well,” Isa said after taking a while to regain his senses, “I must have absorbed some of Lea’s abilities.”

Ventus had other things in mind. “However you did it, you’re clearly the Warrior of Light we’ve been looking for.”

“What?!” Isa cried. This was not something he expected to be dragged into. “Oh, no, I –”

“Come on, Isa! We need you! You have more intimate knowledge of Xehanort’s plans than anybody!”

“This is true,” Isa grudgingly conceded. “All right, then. If I don’t have a choice anyway, I might as well do it willingly.” After Isa and Ventus destroyed the original Replica Program, they left the control room and were hanging out at the main office in the Rotunda. “By the way, Ven, thank you for bringing me back. I can see why Lea likes you. You’re a calm presence to his otherwise… uh… more volatile disposition.”

Ventus laughed. “You might think differently once you see my _literal_ personified dark side. Lea’s meltdown today looks awfully tame compared to that guy on _any_ given day.”

“You, dark? Ha! That has never been you! Or at least, if you have a dark side, you don’t have much of one to begin with.”

Ventus was considering this last comment when his eyes involuntarily fell to a portrait that was standing up against the wall. “What is this?”

“Don’t you know? That’s a picture of Xehanort.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Well, we knew him as Professor Ansem.”

“That’s not Professor Ansem.”

Isa was starting to get annoyed with this little back-and-forth. “Ven, I know I’ve lost my memories at one point, but I definitely remember that this man was, in fact, my professor.”

Ventus shook his head. “See, the problem with that is that I too know this man. We both apprenticed under Xehanort. His name was Terra.”

xXx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A somewhat vague explanation of how a Nobody can get recompleted, as it is. I have also debated back and forth for a while whether or not I wanted to add another chapter related to Terra. In the end, I had decided not to, as it would create further complexities that would require more explaining. However, I do have a draft of that chapter and maybe someday I will include it.


	17. What It Means To Be Human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lea, Ventus, and Isa reunite.

When Ventus and Isa returned to the dorm, they found Lea and Xion sitting at the dining table, in the middle of eating a meal. Ventus regarded them with some affected suspicion. “Did he behave for you this time while we were gone, Xion?” he asked.

“Yeah, we had a nice talk,” Xion replied cheerfully.

Ventus turned to Lea. “So… does this mean you’re back to normal?”

Lea shrugged. “Depends on what you mean by normal.”

“How about as in you’re not trying to kill me?”

“Okay. I guess I’m back to normal.”

“Don’t worry, Ven,” Isa said flippantly, “I’m sure it won’t be long before Lea thinks of other reasons to kill you.”

“Hey, it doesn’t have to be me!” Lea replied. “Do you know that there was this guy who looks exactly like you, only crazier, that came by asking for you?”

“Vanitas was here?” Ventus exclaimed in genuine alarm. “What did he want?”

“He wasn’t _here_ , he was outside,” Xion clarified. “But yeah, he was yelling for you. He said he found the sixth Warrior of Light.”

Isa and Ventus were stunned as they wondered who that could be. “Well, in that case, Isa is our last one,” Ventus announced.

It was Lea and Xion’s turn to be stunned when Ventus gestured toward Isa. “Ha! Serves you right!” Lea laughed.

“But aren’t you glad I’m back? I thought you always wanted me to be human,” Isa countered.

“Yeah, sure,” Lea waved. He was not that willing to admit that he was happy to see Isa again after everything he had put him through.

“Being dead all this time has me starving!” Isa regarded Lea and Xion’s meal choice – two peanut butter sandwiches on white bread – with disdain. “Really, Lea? How is it that after _literally_ escaping the grave, that’s the first thing you turn to?”

“What? That’s all we have!”

“So order something! If I have to eat, I might as well enjoy it!”

“Since when is it our responsibility to feed you?”

“I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”

Lea and Ventus took out all the money they had and placed it at the center of the table. Xion was able to add to the total from the left over money she was given a couple of days before. They figured that they had enough for pizza and some beer and ordered out.

It occurred to Lea, Ventus, and Isa, that this was the first time they had all been together since they were sixteen years old. It was not surprising, then, that they spent the majority of their time reminiscing, starting out sentences with “Remember when” or “How about that time” and sharing so many inside jokes that Xion felt left out. It was unreal for her to see how they were interacting. As Nobodies, they often acted bored or frustrated as they launched into monologues regarding the progress of their latest missions. Now, their discussions were aimless and random, and they were talking over one another in such a rowdy manner, that it was hard for Xion to follow along. At some point, Lea took notice of this. “Hey, aren’t we forgetting something?” he interjected. “Xion has _only_ lived as a Nobody!”

“Oh, that’s right!” Ventus exclaimed. “I guess we’re going to have to indoctrinate her on the finer points of human existence.”

“ _What_ finer points?” Isa smirked.

“Well, I do have a question,” Xion offered. Suddenly all eyes were on her. “If a Nobody’s purpose was to gather hearts for Kingdom Hearts, what’s a human’s purpose?”

Their responses varied. For Lea, humans had no purpose. Ventus surmised that humans were meant to enjoy themselves with family and friends. Still, Isa insisted that humans needed to live up to their full potential. This left Xion confused. Was everybody’s perspective right or were they all wrong? They knew, without a doubt, that they were human and they did not question the humanity of the other. Yet they could not agree on what sounds like the most basic concepts about being human.

“Well... maybe it has more of an intrinsic value,” Lea suggested. “Not everything has to be explained, nor _can_ they be explained.”

“But they should be,” Ventus replied. “We live in a world where artificial intelligence is getting so advanced, it will one day be hard to tell the difference.”

“Xion’s not AI,” Lea countered. “She came from organic material.”

“So do clones.”

“What are you getting at?”

“That there’s a line that needs to be drawn.”

“And Xion’s that line?”

“I don’t know. I’m just saying that we need to draw a line somewhere.”

“Xion is hardly that line,” Isa offered in a way to break the tension that he sensed was slowly building. “But I think we can all agree that Xehanort has crossed it multiple times.” It was a point that Lea and Ventus quickly conceded to, although not one that brought a satisfying conclusion. Isa got up. “I think I’ll be going, since it’s getting late. We can talk more about Xehanort tomorrow.”

“Where would you stay?” Ventus asked.

Isa shrugged. “I’ll head back to Radiant Garden, maybe pay Ansem a visit.” He turned to Xion. “Don’t tell me you want to stay with these two losers?”

“Why not?” Xion said with a straight face.

“Well, for one, their place is small. Where would you sleep?”

“I’ve been sleeping on the couch.”

Isa suddenly appeared concerned and took on a more serious tone. “Xion, you can’t stay here. This is a guy’s dorm. You know, for _guys_.”

“So what?”

“So what?! You’re a girl!”

Xion could only respond with a blank expression. “So… what’s wrong with that?”

All three men blushed violently. It occurred to them, to their stunning embarrassment, that Xion did not really know the difference between males and females. This should not have shocked them, in retrospect, since she was the only female in the Organization during most of her time there, given that Larxene had been annihilated before Xion came to existence. When they were Nobodies, her gender was never an issue, but now…

As they hemmed and hawed their way to incoherent sentences by way of explanation, Xion once again felt a terrible sense of alienation. “Am I… being ostracized?” she asked in despondence.

“No!” they protested all too fervently.

Before things could get any more awkward, as if by sheer providence, relief came by an urgent knocking on the door.

xXx


	18. Warriors of Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All seven Warriors of Light are found.

It was Sora and Kairi. They explained what happened to them at The Castle That Never Was and that they had been thrown out after Riku had agreed to submit to Xehanort.

“What?!” Ventus cried in alarm. “Sora, this could very well be a death sentence for him!”

“What do you mean?” Sora asked.

“Xehanort consumes other people’s hearts for himself. He will consume Riku’s and take over his body.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he did it before – the man you knew as Xehanort and the person of Xemnas – that was actually a former colleague of mine, Terra. He was the Keyblade Master before me. Like Riku, he had the power of both Light and Darkness. Xehanort uses Kingdom Hearts to go from one susceptible body to another.”

“So now we know why Xehanort keeps coming back,” Isa mused. “He just keeps changing bodies.”

“How old is this guy, anyway?” Lea exclaimed. “For all we know, he could have been around for centuries!”

“Tell me, Sora, was Xehanort in his old man form when you saw him?” Ventus inquired.

“Yeah… he was.”

“Then he is probably dying,” Ventus surmised. “He can’t afford to have a bunch of Keyblade wielders walking around and shutting portals between the Realm of Light and the Realm of Darkness. That’s why he’s desperate for the Master Keyblade right now – so that no one else could have that kind of control.”

Crestfallen, Sora drifted away from the group and glared out the window. “I should have followed him,” Sora muttered. “Riku told me not to follow him, but I should have known better.”

Kairi came up from behind. “It’s not your fault, Sora,” she said as reassuringly as possible. “Riku made his decision in order to save us. You would have done the same.”

“Kairi, you don’t understand – I was _so mad_ at Riku when he left me. I thought he was a selfish jerk, and I let him know it. Now that will be the last thing he remembers about me.”

“Come on now, Sora, you’re acting like Riku’s already _dead_ ,” Lea interposed. “The battle hasn’t even been fought yet. He’s the seventh Warrior of Light.”

“Seven?” Sora turned around. “You mean we – ”

“Found them all.”

As if on cue, everybody’s Keyblade emerged involuntarily. A beam of light came out of each of them to join together in a single point, which then shot up into the sky. They were quite flabbergasted, as they did not know what this meant. It must have been a signal, because just then Vanitas materialized in the room. “Finally!” he breathed in exasperation. “Now we can get this thing started!” Vanitas summoned a ball of darkness and hurled it towards them, but it was immediately intercepted by yet another figure that also suddenly appeared in the room. “Hey! What are _you_ doing here?” Vanitas protested angrily.

“Don’t you think they deserve to have a little more time to prepare?” The figure was in full body armor and a helmet. This new figure held out his hand, summoned a ball of light, and projected it onto each person at the center of their chest. When they looked down, they saw that there was a hologram clock etched into them. “You now have twenty-four hours,” the armored figure explained.

“Well, what if we don’t show up in twenty-four hours?” Lea asked.

The figure turned pointedly at him. “Forfeiture means death.” Everyone gasped.

Begrudgingly, Vanitas stepped back into his portal. “Okay, fine. Twenty-four hours it is then.” He grinned menacingly at them. “See you soon!” he cackled and then disappeared.

Ventus could not help but feel that he recognized the armor. “Wait a minute – Terra?”

The armored figure turned to Ventus. “Sorry, no. I am his Lingering Will, the last remnant of Light that was in him before Xehanort took control of his heart.”

“Terra – I mean, Lingering Will – where did you come from?”

“My place is at the Keyblade Graveyard. I was inanimate until your unified Light awakened me. I am the Guardian to the Warriors of Light. Don’t worry: I will be there for you when the time comes.” Terra’s Lingering Will waved as he slowly disappeared into the air.

xXx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I always wondered... why did they HAVE to fight? Who says that one person's life is more important than the other? Especially since some of the characters were already showing reluctance to engage. Something clear and tangible had to be at stake, no less than their own lives.


	19. Battleground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone makes a plan for the final battle.

Everyone was in panic mode. They had been so preoccupied with trying to find all the Warriors of Light throughout this time that it never occurred to them that in the event they had to fight, some planning needed to be involved to prepare for the Keyblade War.

“This war is already skewed in their favor,” Lea scoffed. “We’re without the Keyblade Master, there’s six of us and thirteen of them, and – no offense – but I don’t even think we’re that _good_.”

“The Power of Light is at least two times stronger than the Power of Darkness,” Ventus reminded him.

“Okay… so we have to kill all the Organization members and _then_ what? Will the Master Keyblade just appear?”

“It’s formed when _all_ the powers are released, not just the Power of Darkness. The only question is how to release the Power of Light within ourselves without dying for it.”

“Is surrendering an option?” Sora asked.

Ventus was puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“When Riku and I were at The Edge of Nowhere for the first time, Riku never had a Keyblade, yet he was somehow able to take possession of mine.”

“How did he do that?”

“I guess while we were there he said a lot of things that made me want to give up. Like, he was accusing me of not really caring about Kairi, and that he was the only one trying to find a way to save her, and all without the Keyblade. Somehow, its possession transferred over to him after that.”

“So this surrendering thing… you think Xehanort is willing to accept that?” asked Lea.

Ventus shrugged. “I don’t think he cares how the Master Keyblade is formed – _just that it’s formed_.”

“And how do you know that this will, in fact, form the Master Keyblade?”

“I think you can easily test that theory with your VR program,” Isa offered.

“Maybe,” Lea replied thoughtfully. “Just give me the parameters of everything, and I’ll see what I can set up.” After they told him the values of the Keyblades of Light and Dark, and the conditions of The Edge of Nowhere, Sora once again entered the VR program. This time instead of being a blank white room, he found himself in a place that looked like a rocky desert filled with thousands of inactive Keyblades.

“Is this where the Keyblade War is taking place?” Sora asked.

“Well, this is what I _think_ it looks like based on their description,” Lea’s disembodied voice replied. “So in this scenario, you’re going to fight the monster and after you defeat it, you’re going to, uh… throw your Keyblade.”

“Throw it?”

“Well, I’m not exactly sure how else you’re supposed to surrender it.”

Sora prepared his Keyblade, and before him, Lea materialized as Axel. “You again?” Sora pouted.

Lea smirked. “Oh, so you want an _actual_ monster? Okay.” He transformed into a dark creature ten times his size, with hair and beard made up of dark snakes. He took a swipe at Sora, who promptly leapt back. He took another swipe, and this time managed to hit him and slam him against the wall.

The monster immediately reverted back into Lea’s image. This was the second time Sora faltered in the VR program. “You know, Sora, I didn’t think I needed to remind you that now is not the time to second guess yourself.”

“I’m sorry, okay?!” Sora shouted and stormed off. That was not a reaction Lea expected from him.

“Hey! Don’t walk away from me!” Lea shot back. He ran after Sora and turned him around to face him. “What’s wrong?”

Sora was heaving and looked like he was on the verge of tears. “I’ve been doing this for four years. _Four years_. I shouldn’t have to be struggling like this. When I first started it didn’t take this much effort. Everything came easily.”

Lea could not help but smirk involuntarily. “Oh, _I_ remember! You were a smug little kid back then. That’s what I found so annoying about you.”

Sora looked intrigued. “And now?”

“Well, I don’t want you to be _whiny_ either. But never mind what I think. What do you think?”

Sora gave it some consideration as he thought about what Lea said to him the first time they were in the VR battlefield. “I guess you were right. I think I lost my confidence after I was told I wasn’t Keyblade Master anymore. It really humbled me.”

“Hmmph! Well, humility is for sheep. If you want to be a leader, you better show some arrogance.”

“I thought we called it confidence!”

“Confidence, arrogance – same diff! Just bring it!” Lea transformed again, only this time he took the form a dragon and was much bigger than the first monster.

Sora mustered up all the fortitude that was in him. He thought about the time he was determined to save Kairi from eternal slumber; the time he fought to keep Riku out of the Darkness; even the time they were fighting Xemnas to rescue Ventus! There was a certain level of recklessness in each instance, where he did not know from one moment to the next if he was going to survive the latest blow that came to him. But it was never about his survival: it was about the greater mission at stake – _that_ which he was fighting for. As he channeled all that energy from the memories of his previous battles, he managed to vanquish the dragon in no time. After this, he threw the Keyblade into the center of the field, where it turned into an orb of light.

Lea reappeared right next to Sora. “All right, let’s just pretend we won the rest of the battles, shall we? I kind of don’t feel like doing this several more times.” He generated six more Keyblades of Light and thirteen Keyblades of Darkness. They threw all of the Keyblades into the center of the field, where each transformed into its respective orb. The orbs gravitated towards one another and melded together until they formed the Master Keyblade. Suddenly the world around them started to warp. “Uh-oh. This is going to melt my processing units.” He instantly deleted the Master Keyblade, causing the virtual world to re-stabilize.

“What happened?”

“That took up _a lot_ of power. I’d hate to find out what the _real_ Master Keyblade does.” Lea looked up attentively as someone from outside the program was talking to him. Suddenly his face lit up. “Say! That’s not a bad idea!” he exclaimed.

“What?” Sora asked.

“Okay, Sora, what would you rather do: win the battle or end it?”

“There’s a difference?”

“In this instance, yes.”

“You sound like you clearly have something in mind. What’s your idea?”

“End it.”

xXx


	20. The Ray Gun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lea and Isa work on their plan. Lea reminisces about the experiments.

Lea and Isa returned to the Rotunda. It would be their first time together there since right before they became Nobodies. In a way, it was like returning to the scene of the crime.

“It feels like only yesterday when we exploded ourselves into Castle Oblivion,” Lea commented dryly.

“Only we didn’t,” Isa replied.

“You sound sure.”

“I’m willing to bet on it!” Isa took Lea to the control room, where he showed him the recently destroyed original Replica Program and the preserved bodies that belonged to all the Nobodies in the Organization.

“Huh,” was all Lea could muster. “You’d think he’d want to use the Replica Program here rather than recreate one at Castle Oblivion.”

“And risk his secrets coming out? No way! Everything had to be hidden! Our ignorance was his strength. I guarantee you that he turned us into Nobodies, closed off this room, and then turned himself into an agent of Darkness. Of course, just like us, he may have actually forgotten about this room once he transformed himself.”

“So you think he unleashed the Power of Darkness before we had a chance to use the gun?” Lea suggested.

“ _And_ , like everything else, the gun is somewhere in the Rotunda.”

“Well, where else could it be if it’s not in the control room?”

“Check everywhere! The Rotunda has all kinds of secrets.”

They took their Keyblades and hit all the walls of the Rotunda in an attempt to find any and every secret passage that could be found but were not successful. “You know, the room where Ventus was kept _required_ dark energy to open it,” Lea reminded Isa. “Maybe that’s the case with other rooms here, if there are any.”

“You think he used dark energy to lock up dark energy?”

“That does sound pretty redundant.”

Lea and Isa surveyed the room. It brought up a lot of memories of their fleeting college careers. Back then, the Rotunda served as Professor Ansem’s office. They were aware that Professor Ansem had been performing experiments on people by using dark energy, although they were never privy to what these experiments entailed. Isa’s role in Professor Ansem’s work involved creating computer software while Lea performed system run checks to make sure there were no bugs. As far as they knew and were told, the test subjects were volunteers – the only problem was, people kept disappearing. Rumors started to abound that Professor Ansem’s work had evil designs and that some test subjects may have actually been kidnapped. No one ever bothered to investigate these rumors, however. One of the first test subjects was the Castle guard Braig, who Lea and Isa knew in the Organization as Xigbar. He was also the only test subject that they saw afterwards. Braig seemed to have developed some sort of partnership with Professor Ansem, and the two could be observed engaged in rather tense discussions. It was during one of those discussions when Lea overheard them talking about a vessel of Light while he was performing routine debugging on the Replica Program. They were arguing that Light was much stronger than Darkness, but it was proving to be much more difficult to harness.

“What if I were to tell you that I already have a vessel of Light at my disposal?” Professor Ansem offered beguilingly. “The most valuable test subject of them all: Patient X.”

“Oh, yeah? What does it do?” Braig asked with a tone of skepticism.

“Nothing yet, but being vessel of Light _and_ Keyblade Master means that his powers are quite formidable against the Powers of Darkness. If I can just harness that destructiveness into the Power of Darkness, we will achieve the zenith of Power.”

“If he’s so powerful, how is it that you are able to keep him?”

“I have him in a deep sleep, and he’ll remain that way until I am ready for him.”

“Won’t he be awfully pissed once you wake him up?”

Professor Ansem snickered and waved his hand dismissively at the thought. “He’s just a boy and fortunately does not even know the full extent of his capabilities. Besides, he won’t be the same person anymore once I do wake him up.”

Braig and Professor Ansem laughed as if they had just shared a really good joke, but for Lea, it was indisputable proof regarding the nefariousness of their designs and the careless disregard for human life. What was worse, he had a sinking suspicion that he knew exactly who Patient X was because of the words “Keyblade Master.” He recalled a while ago when he first met Ventus, that Ventus told him that he was training to become Keyblade Master. That was not exactly an everyday profession.

Lea affected a rather indifferent demeanor up until he noted that Braig and Professor Ansem left the Rotunda. When was he sure that they were gone, he immediately ran up to the desk and grabbed as many papers as he could.

Later that evening at their dorm, he told Isa about his discoveries and his intentions to free Ventus. Isa, however, was not pleased. “If Professor Ansem is as dangerous as you think he is, then it’s best for us to stay out of his way as much as possible,” Isa insisted. “This is something we should report to the authorities.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Lea exclaimed. “Telling authorities might put Ven in immediate danger! Besides, I don’t know if you noticed this, but Braig already has some level of authority as a castle guard. They might be in on it too.”

“Then that puts our lives in even more risk!” Isa cried earnestly. “You’re willing to give up your life _that_ easily for someone we haven’t seen in two years?”

“What does that have to do with it?” Lea fumed. “He’s still our friend. We have to fight for him when he can’t fight for himself!”

“ _Your_ friend, Lea – yours. Not mine!”

Lea regarded Isa in stunned silence. “Oh,” he managed after a while. “I never knew you felt that way.” Isa realized at that point that he might have gone too far. He was used to Lea exploding every time they got into heated disagreements, but for Lea to react as quietly as he did meant that Isa had really hurt his feelings.

Lea gathered up the papers and prepared to head out. “Where you going?” Isa asked.

“I have a plan,” he replied. “You don’t have to help if you don’t want to. Just stay out of the way.”

For the next few days, in between his regular tasks, Lea created a ray gun that was capable of containing and outputting dark energy, which would help him access the Door To Darkness, where Ventus was being kept. He had no idea if this was going to work, but unfortunately, he did not have the luxury to test it out. He studied as much as he could about the properties of dark energy and prayed that his calculations were right. When he finally finished the ray gun, he waited until everyone left the building before pulling it out. As he was setting it up, he heard the door open behind him. Terrified, he spun around. “Oh, it’s just you,” Lea sighed when he saw Isa. “What do you want?”

“I figured I would come one last time to tell you that it’s a dangerous idea.”

“Well, you’re too late. I already have it.”

Isa regarded the ray gun in amazement. “You sure you couldn’t have made it any bigger?” he asked sarcastically.

“Hey, you know this contains concentrated dark energy, right? If its chamber was any smaller, the whole thing would explode.”

xXx

That was the very last memory they had before turning into Nobodies. Lea could not even remember if he had pulled the trigger. He conceded to Isa’s conclusion that the gun must still be somewhere in the room. While Isa was still searching, Lea just sat on the chair with his feet up on the desk as he recalled the process of creating the gun.

Isa turned to Lea, a little miffed. “You mean you’re not going to help now?”

“Help with what? I think you’re doing just fine destroying the place on your own.” Lea grabbed the desk to pull himself in and felt a nodule underneath. “Hellooo! What’s this?” he said and pressed it. Suddenly the desk pulled away from him and made way to a large opening with a descending staircase. “Uh-ho! You see! I totally meant for that to happen!”

“Oh, sure, after spending half an hour doing nothing!”

“But which one of us got results, hmm?”

As soon as the desk came to a stop, Lea and Isa walked down the staircase. There was nothing in the room except a large object covered under a white sheet. When Lea pulled the sheet off, he saw that it was, sure enough, the ray gun, but it had been completely dismantled in the process of moving it downstairs.

While Isa was relieved that they finally found the gun, he was apprehensive about its usefulness and even its safety. “How sure are you about your calculations?”

Lea shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I was sure – four years ago.”

Isa sighed in exasperation. “Well, I suppose that’s good enough. We don’t have enough time to recreate this.”

“So you’re sure that this is going to be able to destroy Castle Oblivion?”

“Positive. Castle Oblivion has a magical barrier that can only be destroyed with dark energy. If we can destroy Castle Oblivion, we would be able to gain access to the main portal to the Realm of Darkness, and perhaps close it for good.”

xXx


	21. The Icing on the Cake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One final get-together for nostalgia's sake.

Lea, Ventus, and Xion were all at the Clock Tower with their sea salt ice-cream while watching the sunset. It was a scene that was already all-too-familiar if not nostalgic for the trio, which was their favorite pastime when they were Nobodies. Only now, the atmosphere was one of tension, as they were dreadfully aware that they were down to their final hours before they had to go to the Keyblade Graveyard and engage in the Keyblade War.

So it was, they all sat solemnly with their ice-creams. Despite it being Lea’s favorite treat, he found it incredibly painful to eat from all the knots in his stomach. Still, he somehow managed to finish it until he was down to the stick, which he chewed on pensively. “What a terrible last meal,” he muttered.

“Don’t call it that,” Ventus tittered nervously. “You can hardly call ice-cream a meal.”

Xion found herself nibbling on her ice-cream, thinking about all the times she had tasted this very flavor and all of the happy memories associated with it. She had never been so sad while eating ice-cream.

“You know what I don’t get,” Ventus suddenly mused. “You used to always call this the ‘icing on the cake’ – but it’s ice-cream.”

“It’s just an expression, Ven,” Lea replied indolently. He was leaning against the wall, as he was too tired to support himself. No one really had any sleep since the countdown began, but he and Isa had been especially busy transporting the cumbersome ray gun to a location relatively close to where the battle was going to take place. “Besides, it’s not like you would call it the ‘icing on the ice-cream,’ would you? It doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily.”

“But what does it even mean?” Xion asked earnestly. She might as well be asking what the purpose of life was.

“What, the saying? It just means that you can enjoy the sweeter things in life, like the best it has to offer.”

“That’s a terrible comparison,” Ventus opined. “The entire cake is already sweet. Also, I like the cake part more than the icing anyway.”

“Okay, genius, you tell me what it means,” Lea countered.

“Well, I guess it means that it’s the final reward for a job well done. Like, the cake is the foundation of which you put all your hard work on, and then you finish it off with the icing, which is the easiest step.”

“That’s what I said!” Lea exclaimed.

“No, you didn’t. What you said was completely different.”

“Are you really having a serious conversation about cake?” Xion asked hopelessly.

They lapsed into silence again. After chewing on the stick for a while, Lea pulled it out and looked at it. “Oh? This thing says ‘Winner.’ What did I win?”

“A lifetime of ice-cream!” Ventus offered. They all laughed.

Lea considered the stick for a little longer before he decided to get up and chuck it as hard as he could away from them. The stick flew in a perfect arch before slowly making its descent somewhere not visible to them.

xXx


	22. The Keyblade War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Keyblade War begins.

The six reluctant Warriors of Light all met up at The Edge of Nowhere. The plan sounded simple enough: each person was to take out at least two of the dark vessels, and after having successfully done so, throw their Keyblade into the middle of the battlefield or pass it on to someone else. Meanwhile, Lea and Isa would at some point go up to the nearby hill and destroy Castle Oblivion with the ray gun to expose the main portal to the Realm of Darkness. When the last Keyblade goes down and forms into the Master Keyblade, whoever was closest to it will need to point its beam at the portal to close it, which presumably would permanently shut the connection between the Realm of Light and the Realm of Darkness and prevent Kingdom Hearts from reforming. At that point, they would then obliterate what is left of Kingdom Hearts with the Master Keyblade, which would, in turn, hopefully destroy the weapon itself. Unfortunately, they were not able to test the final part of this plan with the VR program, as creating the Master Keyblade and keeping it in there long enough would only cause the program to crash.

And so, they all arrived at the battlefield. The Organization members were already there. They had looked like they were asleep but suddenly got activated when everyone arrived. Lea scanned the field and only counted eleven. He quickly considered who was missing – it was Riku and Xehanort. On the one hand, this was of some relief as it meant that they were fighting less people, but on the other hand, he had a gnawing suspicion that they were being saved for last – a coup de grace, so to speak. Lea leaned over towards Isa, “Take out whoever you want, but leave Marluxia for me.”

“That’s good, Lea: keep that feeling of vengeance while you fight,” Isa whispered back.

For the longest time, everyone was in a standoff, sizing each other up. Vanitas – the only one from the dark side that apparently did not move in a mechanical manner – suddenly came forward with a ball of dark energy in each hand and hurled them at the Warriors of Light. Ventus leapt up and volleyed the dark energy back at them with his Keyblade. It landed in the middle of the field, causing an explosion and sent everyone scattering. This activated everyone into battle mode.

True to his word, Lea once again came to face-to-face with Marluxia. “I want a rematch, loser!” Lea jeered at him.

Marluxia turned to him and grinned. “Ever the sucker for punishment, eh, Axel?”

“Odd, I thought that was more your thing.”

The two battled it out with their respective Keyblades. As Marluxia lurched forward, Lea jumped right behind him, grabbed him by the hair and his slit his throat. In place of blood, dark energy spilt forth, which also escaped from his eyes and mouth, until all that remained of him was dust. Lea felt strangely unsatisfied with how brief the fight was, and what made him more upset was the fact that he forgot to say something cool right before Marluxia met his demise. “Oh, well – next time,” he thought to himself.

Meanwhile, Xion found herself surrounded by three of the Organization members. “Little puppet!” Xigbar declared by way of greeting. “Long time no see!” Xigbar was joined by members Larxene and Xaldin.

“I’m not a puppet,” she insisted. “At least, not anymore.”

“But aren’t we all?” Xigbar replied in a more sinister tone. Their eyes glowed bright orange and they produced their Keyblades simultaneously. Xion took out her Keyblade and tried to fight them all at the same time but found that she was always vulnerable in at least two places. Feeling threatened, a rather dark force rose from within her chest, and she let out a scream. She then grew ten times her size and took on a more mechanical appearance. Shocked at the drastic change, Xigbar, Larxene, and Xaldin tried to escape, but with one fell swoop she managed to annihilate them all, and she reverted back to her former shape. The amount of energy that she used just for the transformation completely knocked her out, and she fell to her knees, breathless.

Lea rushed over to Xion. “You can do _that_?” he exclaimed wildly.

“I guess it’s still encoded in my DNA,” she gasped, trying to gather herself together.

“Well, remind me to not piss _you_ off!”

“Axel, you could never –”

Just as Lea was helping Xion up, he saw from the corner of his eye that Vexen was charging at them. “Oh, you’ve got to be _kidding_ me!” Lea swung his Keyblade and slashed against Vexen’s while holding up Xion with his other hand. He found it incredibly frustrating and cumbersome to fight this way and kept trying to back away to maintain considerable distance, but Vexen used Lea’s limited mobility to his advantage and ran circles around him.

At last, Isa came by and smacked Vexen out of Lea’s path. “Just take Xion and go,” Isa said. “I’ll take care of this.”

“Yeah, but –”

“Don’t worry, I got this. I’ll catch up with you later.”

Lea reluctantly agreed as he and Xion handed Isa their Keyblades and together ran up the hill. After arriving at a designated spot behind a rock, Lea told Xion to go up ahead. He grabbed the ray gun, which was stored in two separate bags. He hauled one bag over his shoulder and dragged the other one on the ground.

“Do you need help?” Xion asked.

“No,” Lea said through gritted teeth, “I got it.” He wished, though, that they had left it closer to its final destination and cursed himself for not being better prepared. The spot in question was a convenient overlook of Castle Oblivion halfway up the hill, where it plateaued and made for a perfect resting area. Xion kept looking back to Lea, while he continued urging her to keep going. When they finally arrived at the spot, he was so exhausted that he just let the bags clatter on the ground, momentarily forgetting that he was in possession of unstable elements. He became more cautious when he unpacked the bags. He handed Xion a pair of binoculars so she can keep them up to date in regards to the progress on the battlefield. “So what are we down to?” he asked.

“I see just four more,” she replied.

“That doesn’t include Riku, does it?”

There was a long pause. “No,” she sighed. “Sorry.”

Lea was working on setting up the ray gun when he heard an audible gasp from Xion. “What?” he asked in alarm.

“It’s Ventus!” she exclaimed. “He and Vanitas have been out there for a really long time!”

Lea grabbed the binoculars from her and peered through it. Sure enough, Ventus and Vanitas have been going at it relentlessly and were dangerously close to a precipice. It looked as though they were trying to push each other off the edge.

xXx

Vanitas shouted out in frustration as he charged at Ventus with his Keyblade, their respective weapons clashing against each other. He was getting annoyed that with every move he made, Ventus managed to cancel it out. “You’re awfully stubborn, you know that?” Vanitas panted.

“As are you,” Ventus replied, equally breathless.

“Well, I thought that was a bad thing! Aren’t you do-gooders supposed to be pushovers?” he charged at Ventus again, who managed to deflect.

“You’ve obviously never heard of the saying, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ ”

“Of course I’ve heard it!” Vanitas screamed. “I’m you – _remember_? I know everything you know!”

“I highly doubt that.”

“Anger and hatred doesn’t make someone stupid!”

“No, but it doesn’t make them see clearly either.”

“What are you talking about?” Vanitas paused for a minute to give Ventus a chance to explain himself.

“Are you sure it’s me you hate? Are you sure there isn’t someone else?”

“Enough of your stupid riddles!” Vanitas raged. “Just say what you want to say already!” Vanitas rushed at Ventus, and their blades clashed again.

“All right,” Ventus agreed. “You obviously know Terra, right? He was a friend of ours. He too had a lot of Darkness in him. Xehanort killed him right before he created you. How come you don’t hate Xehanort?”

“Well, I –” Vanitas thought about it and realized that he could not answer this question. Every time he thought about Xehanort, the only feelings that came to mind was fear, powerlessness, and cravings. He did not know, however, what exactly he craved from Xehanort. He considered that Kairi was right all along, that nothing he could do would ever earn him Xehanort’s approval. As he pondered this, he slowly backed away and moved closer to the edge.

“Your hatred has been misplaced, my friend,” Ventus explained. “You’re fighting for the wrong side.”

For the first time, Ventus saw what Vanitas looked like without anger. His expression relaxed to ineffable sadness. Ventus had recognized that expression in himself multiple times before, but not in recent memory. To Ventus’ horror, he saw that Vanitas had continued to back up to the edge until he finally dropped out of sight.

“No!” Ventus cried. He ran up to the ledge and with great relief saw that Vanitas was hanging onto a branch just a mere two feet away. Ventus reached out his hand to him. “Come back to me,” he said. “Come back so I can be whole again.”

“You _want_ me?” Vanitas cried incredulously. “You really are an idiot!”

“The breadth of human experience makes up all kinds of emotions, and you’re part of that.”

Vanitas thought about it. His existence by itself was horrible, but perhaps within some proper context, he could be useful after all. Vanitas reached out and grabbed Ventus’ hand. The moment they came into contact, he saw his own image fading away. “See you on the other side,” Vanitas said.

After Vanitas was completely absorbed back into Ventus, he noticed that he produced two Keyblades. He threw the dark one back into the battle field.

xXx


	23. The Keyblade War – Final Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Keyblade War culminates.

As promised, Isa later met up with Lea and Xion and was dismayed with Lea’s lack of progress. “Give me a break, Isa!” Lea snapped when Isa brought it up. “You’re forgetting I had to lug this thing up the hill and then remember how to assemble it.”

“Well, we’re down to two dark vessels now,” Isa informed him.

When Lea was finally finished putting the ray gun together, he made sure that it was positioned so that it was pointing directly at Castle Oblivion. “An end to an era of Nobodies being born as Castle Oblivion returns to oblivion!”

“Lea, what are you doing?” Isa asked flatly.

“What? I figured that a eulogy was in order, at least for the sake of posterity.”

“Posterity? Who’s to going to remember this? It’s just you, me, and Xion.”

“Good enough.” After some initial hesitation, Lea pulled the trigger. To their relief, a steady stream of dark energy had burst forth as it was penetrating into Castle Oblivion. The momentous occasion was less exciting than they thought it would be. They found themselves staring at Castle Oblivion’s slow demise for a good fifteen minutes. At some point, Xion mentioned that she was going to return her focus to the battlefield.

Castle Oblivion was deteriorating slowly at first, with small cracks breaking through the walls before turning into bigger cracks that threatened the overall integrity of its structure. As it fell apart, it finally exploded, which was met with cheers from Lea and Isa. The explosion, however, quickly collapsed within itself and all the pieces of what remained of Castle Oblivion swirled into the portal that led to the Realm of Darkness. To their amazement, they saw that Kingdom Hearts was also evaporating into the portal, as were the thousands of Keyblades that littered the battlefield. Everything was turning into dust and swirling into the portal.

Lea started to get worried. “Isn’t that portal getting bigger?” he noted anxiously to Isa.

“Yeah.”

“And aren’t the winds getting a little stronger?”

“Yeah…”

“In that case, they better hurry this up.”

xXx

As Ventus, Kairi, and Sora manage to vanquish the last of the dark vessels that were in the battlefield, they noticed that, much to their disappointment and confusion, absolutely nothing happened. It was very anti-climactic. Neither Riku nor Xehanort had shown up. “I guess there’s nothing left to do but to throw the rest of our Keyblades into the pile,” Ventus suggested. They agreed and tossed them into the middle of the battlefield. Just then, they felt the ground beneath them rumble violently and a loud explosion coming from up above. When they looked up, they saw that at the very top of the hill, the rocks broke apart and huge, bat-like wings unfurled to reveal two demon-like creatures, one perched on top of the other. The one on the bottom carried some facial semblance to their old friend Riku. He had been completely transformed into the Darkness by which he was consumed. He leapt from his post and flew down, coming straight for Sora!

At the same time, something else had risen. It was the Lingering Will, and he also rushed down towards Sora, grabbing him just before Xehanort and Riku got to him. The Lingering Will went right into Sora, who at that point assumed his armor and Keyblade. As Xehanort’s Riku came face to face with the newly armored Sora, the ground above them raised to exponential heights so that at this point they stood alone in battle. They rushed at one another, their Keyblades clashing as they attacked, counterattacked, and deflected respective blows. From a distance, everyone was able to tell when Sora and Riku came in contact, as flashes of light would brighten the night sky, which was happening at a rapid pace over and over again.

The wind was becoming so strong, that there was no denying that the portal had become a black hole. Lea turned to Isa and Xion. “Run or hold onto something.” They all chose to run, but by then, the wind was so overpowering that they ended up flying backwards. Lea’s flight was cut short when he slammed into an oak tree. Right before Xion flew past him, he grabbed her by the arm. Isa then flew in after and Xion grabbed him by the arm. Isa was able to pull himself towards the tree by using Xion and Lea as human rope and then pulled them in so that they were all huddling against the trunk and praying that the roots would stay planted onto the ground. They saw that the ray gun was now flying past them.

“The ray gun!” Lea cried out.

“Forget it, Lea!” Isa yelled back.

“Well, there goes my hard work!” he lamented.

Meanwhile, Ventus and Kairi were losing footing and started sliding towards the precipice. Ventus grabbed ahold of a boulder and then held onto Kairi. She looked up, hoping that she could see either Sora or Riku, but they were too far away. “Sora!” she screamed. “Riku! Riku, please!”

Up on their elevated platform, even Sora and Riku noticed that they were starting to slide. “Throw the fight, Sora,” Riku rasped.

“No way!” Sora exclaimed. “You throw it!”

“Look, I can handle Xehanort – can you say the same? If this goes on any longer, we’re all going to die anyway.”

While Sora found Riku’s idea of handling Xehanort highly questionable at this point, he knew that Riku was right about their impending deaths. Still, he was not sure if it was the right thing to do to simply hand over the last of the Keyblades, as their intention all along was to keep the Master Keyblade away from Xehanort’s possession. But this was Riku talking. Not the Riku that he became within the last two years after getting consumed by Darkness. The sullen, angry Riku who always seemed like he was holding his breath and waiting for the other shoe to drop. No, this was the brash, brazen, overly confident Riku that he had grown up with. Despite his current appearance, Sora could not help but believe that this really was Riku, and not one possessed by Xehanort. So, as Sora looked Riku in the eye, he quietly nodded and allowed the Keyblade to drop. As soon as Sora’s Keyblade hit the ground, Riku’s transformed. It was now a twin blade – one part Light and the other part Darkness – intersecting one another until it ended in a singular point. It radiated with intense energy, and anyone that looked at it would be amazed by its dazzling appearance. Even Xehanort looked entranced by its magnificence. This was the Master Keyblade.

The winds were substantially stronger now. “Xehanort, you want the Master Keyblade? Come and get it!” Riku wrestled free from Xehanort’s clutches and flew towards the portal.

“No!” Xehanort screamed in alarm and flew right after Riku.

As Riku hurdled past Lea, Isa, and Xion, they called out to him and tried to grab him but he was moving too fast. That was when the roots of the oak tree gave way, and they also flew towards the portal. Riku was rushing as quickly as possible, making sure that Xehanort was close behind all the while. As soon as they reached the portal, Riku threw the Master Keyblade into it. This created yet another explosion, and everyone instantaneously flew in the opposite direction. A big, bright light flashed before their eyes, and for a period of time, they lost all senses.

xXx


	24. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone reunites.

When Lea opened his eyes, he was greeted to the morning sky. He did not remember landing anywhere, but he did remember having a severe case of whiplash. As he sat up, he saw that they were still in the Keyblade Graveyard, only one could not call it that anymore as there were no Keyblades there to live up to its name. Speaking of which… Lea flicked his wrist to see if he would produce a Keyblade. To his delight, nothing happened. 

One by one, everyone else started to get up. The last thing Kairi remembered was seeing Riku coming down and racing towards the black hole, with Xehanort following after him. Frantically, she searched for him but found Sora. She called out to Sora, who was just getting up. He no longer had the armor of the Lingering Will. “Sora! Sora, what happened?” she asked earnestly. “Where’s Riku?”

“I let Riku have the Master Keyblade,” he said, “and then he went straight for the portal. Kairi – that _was_ Riku. I knew he wasn’t under complete control of Xehanort. And he saved us.”

“You don’t think he’s gone, do you?”

“I hope not.”

Kairi and Sora looked as far as their eyes could see through the barren wasteland. They found the others, but not Riku. With growing apprehension, they continued to search until their sight came upon a lone dead tree and underneath it there was a lump that looked like it could be a silhouette of a person. They ran towards the tree and were relieved to see that it was indeed Riku. As someone who was closest to the portal, he had incurred the full force of the explosion and was thrown several feet away from the others. He was lying face down and was still unconscious. Kairi knelt down beside him and shook him by the shoulders. “Riku?”

He stirred and slowly got up before stopping abruptly. “Hey…” he said. “I can see…” He quickly flipped around and looked at his friends in bewilderment. “Kairi! Sora! I can see you now! You look great! And look at the colors! Everything is so beautiful!”

Sora looked up again at his surroundings. He would not have called it the picture of beauty, but when he noted the colors of the sunrise against the foreground of brown, rustic landscape, he certainly understood how one could marvel over it.

Kairi studied Riku intently. “So… you’re okay?”

Riku smiled. “I’m better than okay! The Darkness – it’s gone, Kairi!” Riku so was confident in his abilities that he tried to jump up, but he fell back down. Sora and Kairi each took him by the arm and helped him up.

The three friends headed back to the rest of the group, where they were standing around the armor of the Lingering Will. “You’re not going to take that home with you… are you?” Lea asked Ventus uncertainly.

Ventus picked up the helmet and studied it thoughtfully. “No,” he replied. “I want to make sure that he will be remembered for who he was – not as Xehanort. If Ansem will let me, I want to donate this to the Castle with the inscription that this was The Armor of Terra.”

“Say, that’s not a bad idea!”

When they saw the trio approached, they all greeted one another, but they were especially warm to Riku, who they congratulated on a job well done.

“Thanks, guys,” Riku replied. “But the truth was, I could have never done that on my own. Right before Xehanort took possession of my heart with Darkness, I retained the Light by holding onto a memory that even Xehanort could not reach.”

Everyone was surprised. What was this memory that was so powerful that it could not be erased by Darkness? Riku hesitated at first, as it was actually a very painful memory, but since it had a profound impact nonetheless, he decided that it was only proper to share it.

“It was that day in the Castle at Hollow Bastion. I told Sora that Kairi’s heart was inside of him, and that was why she was not waking up. I didn’t expect him to stab himself with his Keyblade, but he did, and for a while, I thought he lost his life because of it. It actually taught me two things: that for one, I was a terrible friend,” – Sora and Kairi tried to protest this, but Riku would have none of it – “and secondly, that he was willing to sacrifice his own life for the sake of someone he cared about. Xehanort had spent his entire life trying to unlock the secrets of the heart, but he would have never found it because it was a concept that he could never understand: Love. That’s the greatest thing humans have to offer. You taught me that, Sora. I had to learn from you what you already knew all along.”

Sora blushed. Everyone else felt a little sheepish, but they came to realize that this was very true. Not one person there was an island to themselves. They all had to rely on each other to get to where they were, and love was the catalyst that bound them together.

xXx


	25. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The heroes move on after the Keyblade War.

Riku, Kairi, and Sora all returned to Destiny Islands. Riku was pleased to see that after all these years, the raft that he had built prior to the Darkness remained intact. “I can’t believe it’s still here!” Riku cried.

“Does that mean you want to sail it?” Sora asked.

“Sure, but only if you guys come with me.”

Sora and Kairi agreed, and they went home to gather provisions for themselves so that they can spend a day out at sea. They did not know where they were going or what they were going to do when they get there; all they knew for sure was that they were going to have fun, because they were going to do it together.

xXx

Isa was at the Castle of Radiant Garden and speaking with Ansem to re-establish his citizenship there and find a place to stay. After Ansem heard about what happened at the Keyblade War and Isa’s contribution to it, he received Isa warmly and told him that he was more than happy to set up housing for him until he can make it on his own.

Isa left the Audience Chamber and was approaching the castle gates when he immediately recognized the face of one of the guards who had an eye patch. It was Braig. He was stunned. Was he not a Nobody, and was he not killed during the Keyblade War? A part of Isa wanted to keep walking and stay as far away from him as possible, but at the same time, the intense curiosity was burning in him so much, that almost compulsively he came right up to Braig and blurted out: “Excuse me, sir.”

Braig turned around to receive him, looking rather uninterested. “May I help you?” he finally asked when Isa said nothing.

“Oh, yes, um… your name is Braig, right?”

“Yes. How can I help you?”

“Well, you know me.”

Braig scrutinized Isa and later shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t.”

Isa scanned his expression for any hint of irony, such as a sneer or a glint in his eye – nothing. He appeared most sincere. Either that, or a good actor. Isa never recalled Xigbar/Braig being talented in that department. Then that only means there was another explanation. He considered the possibility that his fellow Nobodies returned to human form after they got rid of the Darkness, and that in the process of doing so, lost all their memories of ever being Nobodies. He thought about going back to the Rotunda to prove his theory, but at this point he did not think it even mattered, and decided to let the whole thing go.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Isa replied and walked away. He turned around after a few steps to see if Braig would also look back, but he never did.

xXx

Lea, Ventus, and Xion were all sitting at the beach eating sea salt ice-cream. It was early morning, and Lea was feeling extremely tired. This was their first day since the Keyblade War had transpired, and at that very moment he preferred to spend his free time relaxing under a pile of blankets and pillows. “Don’t get me wrong guys,” he began, “I’m not saying that I _don’t_ like this; I’m just not exactly sure why you felt that this was so urgent that you needed to drag me out of bed for it. I mean, I’ve _been_ to the beach before.”

“It’s the icing on the cake!” Xion exclaimed happily.

“What?”

“You really _don’t_ remember, do you?” Ventus laughed.

“What am I supposed to remember?”

“You said – no, you _promised_ – that the next day we have off, all three of us were going to go to the beach. Well, this is our day off, and here is all three of us.”

Lea looked confused as he tried to think about when this happened. As he searched through his memories, his face suddenly lit up. “Wait a minute! That was almost two years ago!”

“So?”

“So are you really going to hold me accountable for something I said that long ago?”

“Yes!” Ventus and Xion replied at the same time.

Lea smiled to himself. “All right. I’ll tell you what: I promise to keep making promises that I’ll forget as long as you promise to remember them for me, okay?”

“Okay,” they agreed.

For the longest time, everyone stared at the water as the sun rose over the horizon. It was not a moment that they could take for granted, considering how hard they worked for this. Sometimes life goes in a straight line, but other times, it comes to a full circle.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> This is non-canon compliant Kingdom Hearts III, but it takes inspiration from Kingdom Hearts lore. It is also a follow up/sequel to other fanfic, The Secrets to Kingdom Hearts: Organization XIII


End file.
